Colonization Of Organic Substrates Deployed In Deep-Sea Reducing Habitats By Symbiotic Species And Associated Fauna

S.M. Gaudron (1) , F. Pradillon (1, 2) , M. Pailleret (1, 3) , Sébastien Duperron (1) , N. Le Bris , Françoise Gaill (1)

1 IMRB - Institut Mondor de Recherche Biomédicale
2 Institute of Biogeoscience
3 CR2P - Centre de recherche sur la Paléobiodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements

In this study, our goal was to test whether typical vent/seep organisms harbouring symbionts or not, would be able to settle on organic substrates deployed in the vicinity of chemosynthetic ecosystems. Since 2006, a series of novel standardized colonization devices (: osynthetic cosystem lonization by arval nvertebrates) filled with three types of substrates (wood, alfalfa and carbonate) have been deployed in different types of reducing habitats including cold seeps in the eastern Mediterranean, a mud volcano in the Norwegian Sea, and hydrothermal vents on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge for durations of 2 weeks to 1 year. For all deployments, highest species diversities were recovered from CHEMECOLIs filled with organic substrates. Larvae from species associated with thiotrophic symbionts such as thyasirid, vesicomyid and mytilid bivalves, were recovered in the eastern Mediterranean and at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. At the Haakon Mosby Mud Volcano, larvae of symbiotic siboglinids settled on both organic and carbonate substrates. Overall, novel colonization devices (CHEMECOLI) filled with organic substrates attracted both fauna relying on chemosynthesis-derived carbon as well as fauna relying on heterotrophy the latter being opportunistic and tolerant to sulphide.

Mots clés: symbiosis; settlement; colonization; larvae of invertebrates; Xylophaga spp; Idas sp; Thyasira sp; Sclerolinum contortum

S.M. Gaudron, F. Pradillon, M. Pailleret, Sébastien Duperron, N. Le Bris, et al.. Colonization Of Organic Substrates Deployed In Deep-Sea Reducing Habitats By Symbiotic Species And Associated Fauna. Marine Environmental Research, 2010, 70 (1), pp.1. ⟨10.1016/j.marenvres.2010.02.002⟩. ⟨hal-00598197⟩