Hydrothermal Vent Communities
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Abstract Deep‐sea hydrothermal vents are hydrogeological phenomena occurring on the deep ocean bottom, wherever it is a tectonically active area and heated waters reach the seafloor with significant temperatures and pressures. Specific animal communities are strongly associated with these hydrothermal areas, and unique trophic relationships are established among chemolithotrophic bacteria, clams and mussels.Keywords:
Seafloor Spreading
Chemosynthesis
Deep-sea hydrothermal vents are among the most extreme and dynamic environments on Earth. However, islands of highly dense and biologically diverse communities exist in the immediate vicinity of hydrothermal vent flows, in stark contrast to the surrounding bare seafloor. These communities comprise organisms with distinct metabolisms based on chemosynthesis and growth rates comparable to those from shallow water tropical environments, which have been rich sources of biologically active natural products. The geological setting and geochemical nature of deep-sea vents that impact the biogeography of vent organisms, chemosynthesis, and the known biological and metabolic diversity of Eukarya, Bacteria, and Archaea, including the handful of natural products isolated to date from deep-sea vent organisms, are considered here in an assessment of deep-sea hydrothermal vents as potential hot spots for natural products investigations. Of critical importance too are the logistics of collecting deep vent organisms, opportunities for re-collection considering the stability and longevity of vent sites, and the ability to culture natural product-producing deep vent organisms in the laboratory. New cost-effective technologies in deep-sea research and more advanced molecular techniques aimed at screening a more inclusive genetic assembly are poised to accelerate natural product discoveries from these microbial diversity hot spots.
Chemosynthesis
Extreme environment
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Deep‐sea environments are, in some cases, largely unexplored ecosystems, where life thrives driven by the geochemical features of each location. Among these environments, chemosynthesis‐based ecosystems, in the Mid Atlantic Ridge, have an exclusive combination of high depth, high sulfur, and high methane concentrations. This is believed to modulate the biological composition of vent communities and influence the overall vent animal transcriptional activity of genes involved in adaptation processes to extreme environments. This opens, thus, the possibility of finding gene expression signatures specific to a given hydrothermal vent field. Regardless of the extreme physicochemical conditions that characterize deep‐sea hydrothermal vents, the animals dwelling around the vent sites exhibit high productivity and thus must cope with toxic nature of vent surrounding, seemingly deleterious to the animals, while developing surprisingly successful strategies to withstand adverse environmental conditions, including environmental microbes and mechanical stress whether ensuing from animal predation or venting activity. The deep‐sea vent mussel Bathymodiolus azoricus has adapted well to deep‐sea extreme environments and represents the dominating faunal community from hydrothermal vent sites in the Mid‐Atlantic Ridge, owing its successful adaptation and high biomasses to specialized exploitation of methane and sulfide sources from venting activity. Its extraordinary capabilities of adapting and thriving in chemosynthesis‐based environments, largely devoid of photosynthetic primary production and characterized by rapid geochemical regime changes are due to symbiotic associations with chemosynthetic bacteria within its large gills. In an attempt to understand physiological reactions in animals normally set to endure extreme deep‐sea environments, our laboratory has undertaken, for the last few years, a series of investigations, aimed at characterizing molecular indicators of adaptation processes of which components of the host defense system has received most attention. This study reviews recent advances on the characterization of molecules and genes participating in immune reactions, using in vivo and ex vivo models, to elucidate cellular and humoral defense mechanisms in vent mussels and the strategies they have adopted to survive under extreme environments.
Chemosynthesis
Extreme environment
Mytilidae
Geomicrobiology
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Cold seep
Chemosynthesis
Petroleum seep
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Five sublacustrine thermal spring locations from 1 to 109 m water depth in Yellowstone Lake were surveyed by 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing in relation to their chemical composition and dark CO(2) fixation rates. They harbor distinct chemosynthetic bacterial communities, depending on temperature (16-110°C) and electron donor supply (H(2)S <1 to >100 μM; NH(3) <0.5 to >10 μM). Members of the Aquificales, most closely affiliated with the genus Sulfurihydrogenibium, are the most frequently recovered bacterial 16S rRNA gene phylotypes in the hottest samples; the detection of these thermophilic sulfur-oxidizing autotrophs coincided with maximal dark CO(2) fixation rates reaching near 9 μM C h(-1) at temperatures of 50-60°C. Vents at lower temperatures yielded mostly phylotypes related to the mesophilic gammaproteobacterial sulfur oxidizer Thiovirga. In contrast, cool vent water with low chemosynthetic activity yielded predominantly phylotypes related to freshwater Actinobacterial clusters with a cosmopolitan distribution.
Chemosynthesis
Extreme environment
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Chemosynthesis
Cold seep
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Biogeochemical Cycle
Chemosynthesis
Cold seep
Extreme environment
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Habitability
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Chemosynthesis
Hydrostatic pressure
Hyperthermophile
Extremophile
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Symbiosis of chemoautrophic bacteria with the members of hydrothermal vent and cold seep communities in the deep-sea were examined by histology using transmission electron microscopy; Bathymodiolus spp. from Sagami Bay, the Iheya Ridge and the North Fiji Basin; and Ifremeria nautilei from the North Fiji Basin. Two species of Bathymodiolus, each from Sagami Bay and the Iheya Ridge harbored methane-oxidizing symbionts within their gill tissues. Vent gastropod Ifremeria nautilei from the hydrothermal vents of the North Fiji Basin housed two types of symbionts; one sulfur-oxidizing type and the other methane-oxidizing type. The occurrence of chemosynthetic symbionts in these organisms were expected before-hand based on the ecological observations of their habit. The other members of these groups from world oceans and the recent advances in the symbiosis of the vent and seep communities were reviewed.
Chemosynthesis
Petroleum seep
Cold seep
Seabed
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