Hi,
The Annelida List Friday afternoon news service brings you word of:
Bright, Monika; Lallier, Francois H. (2010). The Biology of
Vestimentiferan Tubeworms. Oceanography and Marine Biology. An Annual
Review 48: 213–266.
Abstract: Vestimentiferan tubeworms, once erected at a phylum level,
are now known to comprise a part of the specialised deep-sea polychaete
family Siboglinidae. Their widespread and abundant occurrence at
hydrothermal vents and hydrocarbon seeps has fostered numerous studies
of their evolution and biogeography, ecology and physiology. Harbouring
autotrophic, sulphide-oxidising, intracellular bacterial symbionts, they
form large populations of ‘primary’ producers with contrasting
characteristics, from fast-growing, short-living species at vents, to
slow-growing, long-living species at seeps. These different life
strategies and the ways they modify the biogeochemistry of their
respective environments have consequences on the macro- and meiofaunal
assemblages that develop within vestimentiferan bushes. New findings
indicate that postlarval recruits get infected through the skin by
free-living bacteria for which growth is rapidly and specifically
limited by the host to mesoderm cells around the gut that further
transform into the characteristic trophosome. The resulting internal
location of symbionts prompts specific adaptations of the hosts to
fulfil their metabolic requirements, including unusual sulphide and
carbon dioxide assimilation and transport mechanisms. Symbiont genome
sequencing has improved our knowledge of potential bacterial metabolism
and should rapidly open the way for new research approaches to resolve
the intricate physiological relationships between a eukaryotic host and
its chemoautotrophic bacterial symbionts.
I thought I'd mention this one since it hasn't appeared in abstracting
services, and also there's a pdf available from a page at Roscoff's site
(where I see quite a lot of interesting papers).
http://www.sb-roscoff.fr/Ecchis/publis.html
Or if you have subscriber access to CRC's OMBAR site go to:
http://www.crcnetbase.com/doi/abs/10.1201/EBK1439821169-c4
Have fun,
Geoff
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