Deep-sea worms and bacteria team up to harvest methane

[Judi Lynn]

Newly discovered methane-fueled symbiosis between sea-floor worms and bacteria



Methane-consuming worms were found on the seafloor off the coast of Costa Rica.

Credit and Larger Version

April 8, 2020

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.

The National Science Foundation-funded researchers found that bacteria in the Methylococcaceae family are hitching rides on the feathery plumes of Laminatubus and Bispira worms. The plumes act as respiratory organs. Methylococcaceae harvest carbon and energy from methane.

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 into the ocean. Although it was unclear why the worms favored the vents, it turns out that the worms slowly digest the hitchhiking bacteria and thus absorb the carbon and energy the bacteria harvest from the methane.

"These worms have long been associated with seeps, but everyone just assumed they were filter-feeding on bacteria," says Victoria Orphan, a geobiologist at Caltech and co-author of a paper on the worms published in Science Advances. "Instead, we find that they are teaming up with a microbe to use chemical energy to feed in a way we hadn't considered."

More:
https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=300350&WT.mc_id=USNSF_1

[jpak]

1. I sat in a lecture by Lynn Margoulis in grad school

Her first remark was..

"Are there any REAL biologists here?"

Also worked with Colleen Cavanaugh at Harvard who first identified symbiotic chemosynthetic prokaryotes in hydrothermal vent animals .

We are all symbiots






.