The Journal of Young Investigators: An Undergraduate, Peer-Reviewed Science Journal
Volume 20, Issue 3. September 2010
New Worm Consumes Bones
![[i]Osedax[/i] is unlike any other worm, lacking eyes, stomach or a mouth. Picture Courtesy: [i]Nature[/i].](/articleimages/558/img0.jpg)
Osedax is unlike any other worm, lacking eyes, stomach or a mouth. Picture Courtesy: Nature.
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22 September 2005 -
A newly discovered species of worms uses a unique relationship with bacteria to turn bones into a buffet in the deep sea. Shana Goffredi and her team at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in Moss Landing, California, discovered a whale skeleton covered with this new species in the trough of Monterey Canyon, some 3,000 meters deep.
The worm species, osedax, lack eyes, a stomach or a mouth, and are only a “balloon-like egg sac branching into a green root system” according to Goffredi, who reports her research in the September issue of Environmental Microbiology. “The worm has modified its body in order to accommodate the symbionts.”
The worms break down fats and oils from the bone marrow with the help of symbiotic bacteria that live inside the root-like structure of the worm. The new worms are the first animals known to exploit bacteria that break down lipids or oils.
Symbiosis occurs when two different organisms depend upon each other for their individual survival; usually this involves one of the organisms living inside the other. Found often in the deep-sea, symbiosis allows species to team up against the harsh environment, which often doesn’t have all the nutrients an organism living alone needs. These relationships can play a larger role in environments than just the survival of the organisms.
“Measures of significant population sizes, and the discovery of four additional host species in only three years, suggests that the osedax worms and their bacterial 'partners' are likely to play substantial roles in the cycling of nutrients into the surrounding deep-sea community,” says Goffredi.
The impact of the partnership between osedax and their bacteria is seen in the turnover of organic material in the bones. They are able to break down a fifty-ton whale carcass into carbon 2000 faster times than the natural process.
“It is one of the most novel uses of bacteria by invertebrates that we've seen to date," says Goffredi.
To see how long this relationship has been around, Goffredi looked for genetic relatives of the osedax. DNA analysis linked the osedax to an equally bizarre species of deep-sea worms: vestimentifera - the giant worms that live around hydrothermal vents. The researchers determined that the two new species diverged about 42 million years ago, which is about the same time that many whale species first arose.
“The implication is that these worms were doing this job on other whale bones quite some time ago,” says Bob Vrijenhoek, an evolutionary biologist from MBARI who is one of the authors on the paper. “This is not some recent invention.”
The worm species, osedax, lack eyes, a stomach or a mouth, and are only a “balloon-like egg sac branching into a green root system” according to Goffredi, who reports her research in the September issue of Environmental Microbiology. “The worm has modified its body in order to accommodate the symbionts.”
The worms break down fats and oils from the bone marrow with the help of symbiotic bacteria that live inside the root-like structure of the worm. The new worms are the first animals known to exploit bacteria that break down lipids or oils.
Symbiosis occurs when two different organisms depend upon each other for their individual survival; usually this involves one of the organisms living inside the other. Found often in the deep-sea, symbiosis allows species to team up against the harsh environment, which often doesn’t have all the nutrients an organism living alone needs. These relationships can play a larger role in environments than just the survival of the organisms.
“Measures of significant population sizes, and the discovery of four additional host species in only three years, suggests that the osedax worms and their bacterial 'partners' are likely to play substantial roles in the cycling of nutrients into the surrounding deep-sea community,” says Goffredi.
The impact of the partnership between osedax and their bacteria is seen in the turnover of organic material in the bones. They are able to break down a fifty-ton whale carcass into carbon 2000 faster times than the natural process.
“It is one of the most novel uses of bacteria by invertebrates that we've seen to date," says Goffredi.
To see how long this relationship has been around, Goffredi looked for genetic relatives of the osedax. DNA analysis linked the osedax to an equally bizarre species of deep-sea worms: vestimentifera - the giant worms that live around hydrothermal vents. The researchers determined that the two new species diverged about 42 million years ago, which is about the same time that many whale species first arose.
“The implication is that these worms were doing this job on other whale bones quite some time ago,” says Bob Vrijenhoek, an evolutionary biologist from MBARI who is one of the authors on the paper. “This is not some recent invention.”
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Copyright © 2008 by Freel Kathryn and and JYI. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2008 by Freel Kathryn and and JYI. All rights reserved.