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Title    Deep-Sea Worms and Bacteria Team up to Harvest Methane
Date    Wednesday April 08 2020, @11:20AM
Author    martyb
Topic   
from the So-they-feed-off-Jumpin'-Jack-Flash? dept.
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/04/08/0323200

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Scientists at Caltech and Occidental College have discovered a methane-fueled symbiosis between worms and bacteria at the bottom of the sea, shedding new light on the ecology of deep-sea environments.

They found that bacteria belonging to the Methylococcaceae family have been hitching a ride on the feathery plumes that act as the respiratory organs of Laminatubus and Bispira worms. Methylococcaceae are methanotrophs, meaning that they harvest carbon and energy from methane, a molecule composed of carbon and hydrogen.

The worms, which are a few inches long, have been found in great numbers near deep-sea methane seeps, vents in the ocean floor where hydrocarbon-rich fluids ooze out into the ocean, although it was unclear why the worms favored the vents. As it turns out, the worms slowly digest the hitchhiking bacteria and thus absorb the carbon and energy that the bacteria harvest from the methane.

[...] "These worms have long been associated with seeps, but everyone just assumed they were filter-feeding on bacteria. Instead, we find that they are teaming up with a microbe to use chemical energy to feed in a way we hadn't considered," says Victoria Orphan, James Irvine Professor of Environmental Science and Geobiology and co-corresponding author of a paper on the worms that was published by Science Advances on April 3.

Orphan and her colleagues made the discovery during research cruises to study methane vents off the coast of Southern California and Costa Rica.

Journal Reference: Shana K. Goffredi et al. Methanotrophic bacterial symbionts fuel dense populations of deep-sea feather duster worms (Sabellida, Annelida) and extend the spatial influence of methane seepage, Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay8562


Original Submission

Links

  1. "following story" - https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/deep-sea-worms-and-bacteria-team-harvest-methane
  2. "Victoria Orphan" - https://www.gps.caltech.edu/people/victoria-j-orphan
  3. "DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay8562" - http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aay8562
  4. "Original Submission" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=40244

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