Pandoravirus sediments. Pandoraviruses, like other marine viruses, prey on plankton, which are organisms that live in the water column and form the basis of the food chain for other marine species. More study and research needs to be done in order to confirm the prevalence of Pandoraviruses in different environments. Currently, not much is known about their role in marine ecosystems. Pandoraviruses do have approximately 93% of their genes that are unidentifiable with any other microbes, suggesting they may belong to an as of yet undescribed "fourth domain" aside from Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukaryotes. Viruses as a whole are not popularly
Food chain exist in the absence of sunlight. Chemosynthetic bacteria and archaea use hydrogen sulfide and methane from hydrothermal vents and cold seeps as an energy source (just as plants use sunlight) to produce carbohydrates; they form the base of the food chain. Consumers are organisms that eat other organisms. All organisms in a food chain, except the first organism, are consumers. In a food chain, there is also reliable energy transfer through each stage. However, all the energy at one stage of the chain is not absorbed by the organism at the next stage. The amount of energy from one stage