Strangulating Competition

Letter
Dearest Mr. Dourwind,

My crew has found a region of the trench unlike any other. We've come across an ecosystem absolutely overrun with a quickly-breeding species of deep-sea barnacle. I'd tell you that we were able to gather a sample, but that would be a most grave understatement. Instead, we have become overrun with sample. All of our other preserved species, except those mercifully laid to the confines of a jar, are contaminated. How could something spread to be so extant that no natural predator fills its proper niche? A barnacle is no species fit for apexing the food chain - until it is! The diversity of this ecosystem has simply folded under the proverbial weight of the creature. But still a few select species have survived. Is it some form of commensalism? Mutualism? Preference? The maddening nature of this barnacle imparts upon me a hypothesis of horrible design.

Always your friend,

Alfred R. Walless