Cluster Project F5

Geofueled biota complexity

The remarkably high biomass of animals at hydrothermal vents and hydrocarbon seeps, such as tube worms, mussels, and clams, is driven by geofuels through symbiotic associations with chemosynthetic bacteria that oxidize sulfide and methane to provide their hosts with nutrition. The giant gutless tubeworm Riftia pachyptila was one of the first and most spectacular discoveries of chemosynthetic symbiont productivity. We now know that these types of symbioses occur in many different animal groups such as mussels, clams, snails, shrimp, and annelid worms (e.g. Urakawa, Dubilier et al. 2005, Duperron et al. 2006, Dubilier et al. 2006), and that these associations provide the basis for the teeming oases of life at hydrothermal vents and hydrocarbon seeps in the otherwise animal-poor deep sea. The goal of cluster project F5, in close collaboration with cluster projects F2 and F3 in GB5 and GB3, is to understand how geofuel diversity affects symbiotic primary production and how the geology and chemistry of these chemosynthetic habitats affects the biological communities.