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The article presents a study about the applications of ancient DNA (aDNA) techniques for deep-water corals. It examines and develops aDNA techniques from sub-fossil scleractinian skeletons, which have been successful in yielding base pairs of the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) region in these sub-fossils. The preliminary results of the initial extraction, amplification, and sequencing of sub-fossil aDNA from two deep-water scleractinian coral species from the Northwest Atlantic are discussed.

Larval dispersal is critical for the maintenance of species populations in patchy and ephemeral hydrothermal vent habitats. On fast-spreading ridges, such as the East Pacific Rise, rates of habitat turnover are comparable to estimated lifespans of many of the inhabiting species. Traditionally, dispersal questions have been addressed with two very different approaches, larval studies and population genetics. Population genetic studies of vent-endemic species have been informative for determining whether patterns of dispersal are suggestive of stepping stone or island models and estimating rates of gene flow (effective migrants per generation) over broad geographic ranges. However, these studies leave fundamental questions unanswered about the specific mechanisms by which larvae disperse and species maintain their populations and biogeographic ranges. With the goal of examining genetic structure and elucidating alternative larval dispersal mechanisms, we employed a genomic DNA fingerprinting technique, amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs). To assess the potential utility of AFLPs, and genetic structure of the hydrothermal vent tubeworm Riftia pachyptila, genomic ‘fingerprints’ were recovered from 29 individuals from five vent fields spanning a distance of up to c. 5000 km along the East Pacific Rise. In contrast to previous population genetic studies that found little to no genetic structure using allozymes and mitochondrial DNA, genetic analyses of 630 polymorphic AFLP loci identified distinct subclades within R. pachyptila populations. Significant levels of differentiation were observed among populations from all vent regions as well as within each region. Discrete assemblages of tubeworms separated by as little as c. 400 m within a given vent region were genetically distinguishable and cohorts (based on size-frequency distribution) within an aggregation were found to be most closely related. These results suggest that mechanisms of larval dispersal act to retain cohort fidelity in R. pachyptila. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A prevailing paradigm of hydrothermal vent ecology is that primary consumers feed on chemoautotrophic bacteria. However, for the purposes of reconstructing vent food webs and for tracking energy flow from the generation of rock and fluid chemistry through primary/ secondary productivity and consumption to the overlying water column, it remains unclear which consumers feed on which bacteria. In paired analyses of carbon and nitrogen tissue stable isotope values with unique 16S rRNA sequences from the stomach contents, we determined that two species of gastropod grazers appear to feed on epsilon-proteobacteria, while two other species have more diverse diets, including one species that consumes alpha-proteobacteria, planctomycetes, and non-green sulfur bacteria. Different carbon fixation pathways used by epsilon- and alpha-proteobacteria may account for the variation in the carbon stable isotope values among the consumers. Furthermore, our results indicate that trophic specialization and niche partitioning may contribute to the distribution and abundance of vent-endemic gastropods and support the hypothesis that consumers in the warmer habitats commonly feed on epsilon-proteobacteria that use the rTCA cycle, while in the cooler habitats they feed on additional bacteria that use the CBB cycle. These results suggest that the phylogenetic and metabolic diversity of free-living bacteria may play an important and previously overlooked role in facilitating species coexistence among primary consumers at hydrothermal vents and other chemosynthesis-based ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At deep-sea hydrothermal vents, reduced, super-heated hydrothermal fluids mix with cold, oxygenated seawater. This creates temperature and chemical gradients that support chemosynthetic primary production and a biomass-rich community of invertebrates. In late 2005/early 2006 an eruption occurred on the East Pacific Rise at 9°50′N, 104°17′W. Direct observations of the post-eruptive diffuse-flow vents indicated that the earliest colonizers were microbial biofilms. Two cruises in 2006 and 2007 allowed us to monitor and sample the early steps of ecosystem recovery. The main objective of this work was to characterize the composition of microbial biofilms in relation to the temperature and chemistry of the hydrothermal fluids and the observed patterns of megafaunal colonization. The area selected for this study had local seafloor habitats of active diffuse flow (in-flow) interrupted by adjacent habitats with no apparent expulsion of hydrothermal fluids (no-flow). The in-flow habitats were characterized by higher temperatures (1.6–25.2 °C) and H 2 S concentrations (up to 67.3 µM) than the no-flow habitats, and the microbial biofilms were dominated by chemosynthetic Epsilonproteobacteria . The no-flow habitats had much lower temperatures (1.2–5.2 °C) and H 2 S concentrations (0.3–2.9 µM), and Gammaproteobacteria dominated the biofilms. Siboglinid tubeworms colonized only in-flow habitats, while they were absent at the no-flow areas, suggesting a correlation between siboglinid tubeworm colonization, active hydrothermal flow, and the composition of chemosynthetic microbial biofilms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of our knowledge about deep-sea habitats is limited to bathyal (200–3000 m) and abyssal depths (3000–6000 m), while relatively little is known about the hadal zone (6000–11,000 m). The basic paradigm for the distribution of deep seafloor biomass suggests that the reduction in biomass and average body size of benthic animals along depth gradients is mainly related to surface productivity and remineralisation of sinking particulate organic carbon with depth. However, there is evidence that this pattern is somewhat reversed in hadal trenches by the funnelling of organic sediments, which would result in increased food availability along the axis of the trenches and towards their deeper regions. Therefore, despite the extreme hydrostatic pressure and remoteness from the pelagic food supply, it is hypothesized that biomass can increase with depth in hadal trenches. We developed a numerical model of gravitational lateral sediment transport along the seafloor as a function of slope, using the Kermadec Trench, near New Zealand, as a test environment. We propose that local topography (at a scale of tens of kilometres) and trench shape can be used to provide useful estimates of local accumulation of food and, therefore, patterns of benthic biomass. Orientation and steepness of local slopes are the drivers of organic sediment accumulation in the model, which result in higher biomass along the axis of the trench, especially in the deepest spots, and lower biomass on the slopes, from which most sediment is removed. The model outputs for the Kermadec Trench are in agreement with observations suggesting the occurrence of a funnelling effect and substantial spatial variability in biomass inside a trench. Further trench surveys will be needed to determine the degree to which seafloor currents are important compared with the gravity-driven transport modelled here. These outputs can also benefit future hadal investigations by highlighting areas of potential biological interest, on which to focus sampling effort. Comprehensive exploration of hadal trenches will, in turn, provide datasets for improving the model parameters and increasing predictive power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]