Cooperative Research: Studies on the Physiological Ecology of Hydrothermal Vent Chemoatotrophic Symbioses

合作研究：热液喷口化能共生体的生理生态学研究

• 批准号: 0002729
• 负责人: Charles Fisher
• 金额: $ 26.63万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-09-01 至 2004-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0002729&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Cooperative; Research; Studies; Physiological; Ecology

Vent fauna is a largely ancient fauna of global distribution in the deep?sea. It has limited taxonomic affinities to most deep?sea communities, and yet it has affinities to the faunas of deep?sea hydrocarbon seeps and other seep environments. Deep?sea hydrothermal vents are one of the major ecosystem types on the earth, but probably the least known. The high biomasses of these communities largely reflect the ability of a few invertebrate/bacteria symbioses to oxidize reduced chemical species (sulfide or methane) from the vents using oxygen from the surrounding deep?sea water to power primary production. The allegation that vent communities are highly productive is often seen in the literature based on the high biomasses estimated, the rapid establishment of vent communities and the rapid growth of some vent animals. However, there are currently no well?founded estimates of primary production by the symbioses at any hydrothermal vents. The central objective of this study is to quantify the major vent symbioses' chemical interactions with the vent fluids and the abundances of those symbioses in such a way that primary and secondary production and other chemical exchanges can be modeled for entire assemblages of symbiotic animals. This involves determining the range of production and exchange rates of the symbioses and the relations between environmental conditions and those rates. Environmental data will then be used to estimate in situ rates for entire assemblages at single points in time and over the lifetime of vent sites. This consists first of the Childress group expanding its study of the rates of exchanges to a range of sizes of all the major autotrophic symbioses. Complementing this, the Fisher group will characterize and sample sites at 9'50'N on the EPR so that the biomass, organism abundance and organism sizes are documented and size/weight relationships are developed. These data will enable the estimating of production in entire symbiotic assemblages and they can also be used with existing photographic datasets to estimate biomasses at other EPR sites which have been photographically documented and for which chemical datasets exist. The results will greatly increase the understanding of the nature of the interactions between the vent animals and their chemical environments and enable the first solid estimates of production and other exchanges by the symbiotic components of vent communities, making a major contribution to the understanding of the functioning of vent and other chemoautotrophically supported ecosystems.

Vent动物群是深海全球分布的古老动物区系。它对大多数深海社区的分类学亲和力有限，但是它与深海烃渗漏和其他渗水环境的动物相关。深度“海水热通风孔”是地球上主要的生态系统类型之一，但可能是最知名的。这些群落的高生物量在很大程度上反映了一些无脊椎动物/细菌共生菌的能力，可以利用来自周围深层海水到电力生产的氧气氧化从通风口氧化的化学物种（硫化物或甲烷）的能力。 根据估计的高生物量，通风口群落的快速建立以及某些通风动物的快速生长，通常在文献中经常看到通气界具有高生产力的指控。但是，目前没有任何水热通风孔对共生的基础生产的估计。这项研究的核心目的是量化主要的通风孔共生与排气流体的化学相互作用以及这些共生体的丰富性，以使原代和二级生产和其他化学交换可以为共生动物组成的整个组合建模。这涉及确定共生物的生产和汇率范围以及环境条件与这些速率之间的关系。然后，环境数据将用于估计单个时间点和通风口寿命的整个组合的原位速率。这首先是Childress组，将其对交换速率的研究扩展到所有主要自养共生的一系列大小。与此相辅相成，Fisher组将在EPR上表征和样本位点，以便记录生物质，生物体丰度和有机体大小并开发大小/重量关系。这些数据将能够估算整个共生组合中的生产，并且还可以与现有的摄影数据集一起使用，以估算其他已在照片上记录并存在化学数据集的EPR站点的生物量。 结果将大大提高对通风动物及其化学环境之间相互作用的性质的理解，并通过通风群落的共生组成部分对生产和其他交流进行首次稳定估计，从而为理解通风口和其他化学自动菌体的生态系统的功能做出了重大贡献。