2. Chemoautosynthetic Communities in Cold Seep Areas

I review chemoautosynthesis-based faunal communities which have been discovered in the deep-sea areas in the Northwestern Pacific. Fauna of each community and fur-ther biological studies are summarized. Zoogeographical and evolutionary status of communities in the Northwestern Pacific is discussed. gressed. Unfortunately, not all of such results are globally known, partly because not a few results were published only in Japanese. This review summarizes information on the various deep-sea chemosynthetic communities in the Northwestern Pacific and recent achievements in the studies of those communities made mainly by Japanese deep-sea biologists