University of Vienna, Department of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology, Vienna, Austria.
Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), 't Horntje, The Netherlands.
Nat Commun. 2024 Oct 15;15(1):8466. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-52631-9.
It was once believed that only microbes and viruses inhabited the subseafloor crust beneath hydrothermal vents. Yet, on the seafloor, animals like the giant tubeworm Riftia pachyptila thrive. Their larvae are thought to disperse in the water column, despite never being observed there. We hypothesized that these larvae travel through the subseafloor via vent fluids. In our exploration, lifting lobate lava shelves revealed adult tubeworms and other vent animals in subseafloor cavities. The discovery of vent endemic animals below the visible seafloor shows that the seafloor and subseafloor faunal communities are connected. The presence of adult tubeworms suggests larval dispersal through the recharge zone of the hydrothermal circulation system. Given that many of these animals are host to dense bacterial communities that oxidize reduced chemicals and fix carbon, the extension of animal habitats into the subseafloor has implications for local and regional geochemical flux measurements. These findings underscore the need for protecting vents, as the extent of these habitats has yet to be fully ascertained.
曾经人们认为只有微生物和病毒栖息在热液喷口下方的海底地壳中。然而，在海底，像巨型管蠕虫 Riftia pachyptila 这样的动物却大量繁殖。人们认为它们的幼虫会在水柱中扩散，尽管从未在那里观察到过。我们假设这些幼虫通过喷口流体在海底以下传播。在我们的探索中，提起片状熔岩架揭示了海底以下的腔室内有成年管蠕虫和其他喷口动物。在可见海底以下发现喷口特有动物表明海底和海底动物群是相互连接的。成年管蠕虫的存在表明幼虫通过热液循环系统的补给区扩散。鉴于这些动物中有许多是密集的细菌群落的宿主，这些细菌群落可以氧化还原化学物质并固定碳，动物栖息地向海底延伸对当地和区域地球化学通量测量具有重要意义。这些发现强调了保护喷口的必要性，因为这些栖息地的范围尚未完全确定。
