Chemoautotrophic symbionts identified in Riftia pachyptila
Cavanaugh and colleagues report that the giant tube worm's trophosome is packed with sulphur-oxidising bacteria, explaining how an animal with no mouth and no gut feeds itself. Chemosynthesis stops being a hypothesis about vent communities and becomes a documented mechanism.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Giant Tube Worm (Riftia pachyptila) · species · Eastern Pacific hydrothermal vent fields · not located
- Hydrothermal Venting · phenomenon · Global - mid-ocean ridges, back-arc basins, submarine volcanic arcs · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Prokaryotic Cells in the Hydrothermal Vent Tube Worm Riftia pachyptila Jones: Possible Chemoautotrophic Symbionts
Riftia pachyptila houses sulphur-oxidising chemoautotrophic bacteria in the trophosome; the adult worm lacks a mouth and functional gut and depends on carbon fixed by these symbionts.
Science (AAAS), Cavanaugh, Gardiner, Jones, Jannasch and Waterbury · 1981 · Partly verified
Science, vol. 213, no. 4505, pp. 340-342, 1981; doi:10.1126/science.213.4505.340
Recorded on Giant Tube Worm (Riftia pachyptila)
- Alvin finds hydrothermal vents on the Galapagos Rift
- Submarine thermal springs on the Galapagos Rift published in Science
- Chemoautotrophic symbionts identified in Riftia pachyptila
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.