New co-authored paper published in the peer-reviewed journal “Polar Biology“! The article can be read for free via the following link: http://rdcu.be/tWBe .
In this paper, we characterised microbes associated with the recently discovered Antarctic vent snail Gigantopelta chessoia Chen et al., 2015. It has been known that this snail hosts endosymbionts in an much enlarged oesophageal gland, but the details about the symbiont’s phylogenetic position has not been published. We show that the endosymbiont is a Gammaproteobacteria related to sulfur-oxidising bacteria from cold seeps and other animals living in chemosynthetic ecosystems. Also revealed is a more diverse epibiont community on the gill surface, including members belonging to Gamma, Epsilon and Deltaproteobacteria. Interestingly, the endosymbiont Gammaproteobacteria strain was also found on the gill surface but not in the surrounding water column. Given that juveniles of this species is regularly recovered from within the adults’ mantle cavity, this suggests they may acquire the symbionts directly from the gills of adult snails.
Gigantopelta chessoia and its associated microbial community
- Heywood JL, Chen C, Pearce DA, Linse K (2017). Bacterial communities associated with the Southern Ocean vent gastropod, Gigantopelta chessoia: indication of intergenerational, horizontal symbiont transfer. Polar Biology. https://link.springer.com/artic…/10.1007%2Fs00300-017-2148-6