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First published online August 30, 2006
Journal of Experimental Biology 209, 3516-3528 (2006)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2006
doi: 10.1242/jeb.02404

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Metabolite uptake, stoichiometry and chemoautotrophic function of the hydrothermal vent tubeworm Riftia pachyptila: responses to environmental variations in substrate concentrations and temperature

Peter R. Girguis^1,* and James J. Childress²

¹ Harvard University, 16 Divinity Avenue, Biological labs room 3085, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
² University of California Santa Barbara, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA

^* Author for correspondence (e-mail: pgirguis{at}oeb.harvard.edu)

Accepted 26 June 2006

The hydrothermal vent tubeworm Riftia pachyptila is a dominant member of many hydrothermal vent communities along the East Pacific rise and is one of the fastest growing metazoans known. Riftia flourish in diffuse hydrothermal fluid flows, an environment with high spatial and temporal heterogeneity in physical and chemical conditions. To date, physiological and biochemical studies of Riftia have focused on Riftia's adaptations to its chemoautotrophic bacterial symbionts. However the relation between in situ physico-chemical heterogeneity and Riftia host and symbiont metabolism, in particular symbiont chemoautotrophic function, remain poorly understood. Accordingly, we conducted experiments using shipboard high-pressure respirometers to ascertain the effect of varying substrate concentrations and temperature on Riftia metabolite uptake and symbiont carbon fixation. Our results show that substrate concentrations can strongly govern Riftia oxygen and sulfide uptake rates, as well as net carbon uptake (which is a proxy for chemoautotrophic primary production). However, after sufficient exposure to sulfide and oxygen, Riftia were capable of sustaining symbiont autotrophic function for several hours in seawater devoid of sulfide or oxygen, enabling the association to support symbiont metabolism through brief periods of substrate deficiency. Overall, temperature had the largest influence on Riftia metabolite uptake and symbiont autotrophic metabolism. In sum, while Riftia requires sufficient availability of substrates to support symbiont chemoautotrophic function, it is extremely well poised to buffer the temporal and spatial heterogeneity in environmental substrate concentrations, alleviating the influence of environmental heterogeneity on symbiont chemoautotrophic function.

Key words: metabolism, stoichiometry, Riftia, hydrothermal vent, chemoautotrophy, symbiosis

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