How endosymbionts escape dead tubeworms and repopulate live specimens
Monday, August 24, 2015 - 07:50
in Biology & Nature
(Phys.org)—Deep within oceanic hydrothermal vents, the thiotrophic gamma-proteobacterial endosymbiont Candidatus Endoriftia lives in happy symbiosis with its host organism, the sessile tubeworm Riftia pachyptila: The tubeworm provides all the substrates the endosymbiont needs for chemosynthesis and, in return, Endoriftia releases fixed organic carbon for the tubeworm host, which is gutless, and would otherwise have no source of nutrition.