Theory 26/Deep sea
Whale Falls Run on Lipid
The claim
The duration of a whale-fall community is set by the ratio of carcass lipid to sulphide production rate, so a fat carcass supports chemosynthesis for decades.
01Mechanism
Bacteria degrade lipid and produce sulphide, which fuels the chemosynthetic community; the ratio sets how long the supply lasts.
02Predictions
- P1Community duration should track the ratio.
- P2Carcass size alone should mispredict.
03Refutation
Duration tracking carcass mass would remove the lipid composition.
04Why it resists the grid
An ecosystem whose entire existence depends on a single death event, so community and resource are the same object.