Diversity of symbioses between chemosynthetic bacteria and metazoans at the Guiness cold seep site (Gulf of Guinea, West Africa).

ABSTRACT: Fauna from deep-sea cold seeps worldwide is dominated by chemosymbiotic metazoans. Recently, investigation of new sites in the Gulf of Guinea yielded numerous new species for which symbiosis was strongly suspected. In this study, symbioses are characterized in five seep-specialist metazoans recently collected from the Guiness site located at ≈ 600 m depth. Four bivalve and one annelid species belonging to families previously documented to harbor chemosynthetic bacteria were investigated using bacterial marker gene sequencing, fluorescence in situ hybridization, and stable isotope analyses. Results support that all five species display chemosynthetic, sulfur-oxidizing γ-proteobacteria. Bacteria are abundant in the gills of bivalves, and in the trophosome of the siboglinid annelid. As observ

SUBMITTER: Duperron S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3535391 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature