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Alvinellidae
The Alvinellidae are a family of small, deep-sea polychaete worms endemic to hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean. Belonging to the order Terebellida, the family contains two genera, ''Alvinella'' and ''Paralvinella''; the former genus contains two valid species and the latter eight. Members of the family are termed alvinellids. The family was first described in 1979 after discoveries made off the Galápagos Islands by the crew of the DSV ''Alvin''. The ship subsequently lent its name to the family and genera within it. The worms build mucus tubes and extend red feathery gills. Members of the Alvinellidae are noted for their exceptional heat tolerance: one species, the Pompeii worm (''Alvinella pompejana''), is thought to be the most heat-tolerant complex organism on Earth. Mitochondria start to break down at temperatures of , apparently providing an upper limit for eukaryotes. Under laboratory conditions, in a pressurized aquarium with a heat gradient, worms of the specie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pompeii Worm
''Alvinella pompejana'', the Pompeii worm, is a species of deep-sea polychaete worm (commonly referred to as "bristle worms"). It is an extremophile found only at hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean, discovered in the early 1980s off the Galápagos Islands by French marine biologists. Introduction In 1980 Daniel Desbruyères and Lucien Laubier, just few years after the discovery of the first hydrothermal vent system, identified one of the most heat-tolerant animals on Earth — ''Alvinella pompejana'', the Pompeii worm. It was described as a deep-sea polychaete that resides in tubes near hydrothermal vents, along the seafloor. In 1997, marine biologist Craig Cary and colleagues found the same worms in a new section of Pacific Ocean, near Costa Rica, also attached to hydrothermal vents. The new discovery and subsequent work led to important progress in the scientific knowledge of these special worms. They can reach up to in length and are pale gray, with red tentacle-li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terebellida
Terebellida make up an order of the Polychaeta class, commonly referred to as "bristle worms". Together with the Sabellida, the Spionida and some enigmatic families of unclear taxonomic relationship (e.g. the Saccocirridae), they make up the subclass Canalipalpata, one of the three main clades of polychaetes. Like most polychaetes, almost all members of the ''Terebellida'' are marine organisms. Most are small, sessile detritivores (deposit feeders) which live in small tubes they build from mud or similar substrate, or burrow in the sand. Their central nervous system displays characteristic apomorphies. Systematics There is little consensus on the number of families. Some treatments accept as little as five, while other authors list over a dozen. Here, the more inclusive view of the Terebellida is followed, based on a major review of polychaete systematics. Cladistic studies have hitherto only analyzed a rather small proportion of polychaetes; hence it may be that so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paralvinella Sulfincola
''Paralvinella sulfincola'', also known as the sulfide worm, is a species of polychaete worm of the Alvinellidae family that thrives on undersea hot-water vents. It dwells within tubes in waters surrounding hydrothermal vents, in close proximity to super-heated fluids reaching over . The upper thermal limit for this polychaete is unknown; however, it is unlikely they can survive in constant temperatures over . It may tentatively be named a metazoan extremophile or, more specifically, a thermophile. Their unique abilities to withstand high temperatures close to hydrothermal fluids enables them to prey upon sulphur-oxidising bacterial mats which grow close to the metal rich vent plume. Morphology ''Paralvinella sulfincola'' colonizes smoker chimneys found near deep sea ridges in aggregations or singly upon vents. They grow up to a length of about 20-70 mm and secrete mucous in the form of a tube with two openings. This tube serves as a home, not only for the worm, but also for a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alvinella
''Alvinella'' is a genus of annelids belonging to the family Alvinellidae The Alvinellidae are a family of small, deep-sea polychaete worms endemic to hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean. Belonging to the order Terebellida, the family contains two genera, ''Alvinella'' and ''Paralvinella''; the former genus conta .... The species of this genus are found in Southeastern Asia and Northern America. Species: *'' Alvinella caudata'' *'' Alvinella pompejana'' References {{Taxonbar, from=Q3887923 Annelids ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polychaete
Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine annelid worms, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are made of chitin. More than 10,000 species are described in this class. Common representatives include the lugworm (''Arenicola marina'') and the sandworm or clam worm ''Alitta''. Polychaetes as a class are robust and widespread, with species that live in the coldest ocean temperatures of the abyssal plain, to forms which tolerate the extremely high temperatures near hydrothermal vents. Polychaetes occur throughout the Earth's oceans at all depths, from forms that live as plankton near the surface, to a 2- to 3-cm specimen (still unclassified) observed by the robot ocean probe ''Nereus'' at the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest known spot in the Earth's oceans. Only 168 species (less than 2% of all polychaetes) are known from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermophile
A thermophile is an organism—a type of extremophile—that thrives at relatively high temperatures, between . Many thermophiles are archaea, though they can be bacteria or fungi. Thermophilic eubacteria are suggested to have been among the earliest bacteria. Thermophiles are found in various geothermally heated regions of the Earth, such as hot springs like those in Yellowstone National Park (see image) and deep sea hydrothermal vents, as well as decaying plant matter, such as peat bogs and compost. Thermophiles can survive at high temperatures, whereas other bacteria or archaea would be damaged and sometimes killed if exposed to the same temperatures. The enzymes in thermophiles function at high temperatures. Some of these enzymes are used in molecular biology, for example the ''Taq'' polymerase used in PCR. "Thermophile" is derived from the el, θερμότητα (''thermotita''), meaning heat, and el, φίλια (''philia''), love. Classification Thermophiles can be c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symbiosis
Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasitic. The organisms, each termed a symbiont, must be of different species. In 1879, Heinrich Anton de Bary defined it as "the living together of unlike organisms". The term was subject to a century-long debate about whether it should specifically denote mutualism, as in lichens. Biologists have now abandoned that restriction. Symbiosis can be obligatory, which means that one or more of the symbionts depend on each other for survival, or facultative (optional), when they can generally live independently. Symbiosis is also classified by physical attachment. When symbionts form a single body it is called conjunctive symbiosis, while all other arrangements are called disjunctive symbiosis."symbiosis." Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemosynthesis
In biochemistry, chemosynthesis is the biological conversion of one or more carbon-containing molecules (usually carbon dioxide or methane) and nutrients into organic matter using the oxidation of inorganic compounds (e.g., hydrogen gas, hydrogen sulfide) or ferrous ions as a source of energy, rather than sunlight, as in photosynthesis. Chemotroph, Chemoautotrophs, organisms that obtain carbon from carbon dioxide through chemosynthesis, are phylogenetically diverse. Groups that include conspicuous or biogeochemically-important taxa include the sulfur-oxidizing Gammaproteobacteria, the Campylobacterota, the Aquificota, the methanogenic archaea, and the neutrophilic iron-oxidizing bacteria. Many microorganisms in dark regions of the oceans use chemosynthesis to produce biomass from single-carbon molecules. Two categories can be distinguished. In the rare sites where hydrogen molecules (H2) are available, the energy available from the reaction between CO2 and H2 (leading to product ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eukaryote
Eukaryotes () are organisms whose cells have a nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms, are Eukaryotes. They belong to the group of organisms Eukaryota or Eukarya, which is one of the three domains of life. Bacteria and Archaea (both prokaryotes) make up the other two domains. The eukaryotes are usually now regarded as having emerged in the Archaea or as a sister of the Asgard archaea. This implies that there are only two domains of life, Bacteria and Archaea, with eukaryotes incorporated among archaea. Eukaryotes represent a small minority of the number of organisms, but, due to their generally much larger size, their collective global biomass is estimated to be about equal to that of prokaryotes. Eukaryotes emerged approximately 2.3–1.8 billion years ago, during the Proterozoic eon, likely as flagellated phagotrophs. Their name comes from the Greek εὖ (''eu'', "well" or "good") and κάρυον (''karyon'', "nut" or "kernel"). E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mitochondria
A mitochondrion (; ) is an organelle found in the cells of most Eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is used throughout the cell as a source of chemical energy. They were discovered by Albert von Kölliker in 1857 in the voluntary muscles of insects. The term ''mitochondrion'' was coined by Carl Benda in 1898. The mitochondrion is popularly nicknamed the "powerhouse of the cell", a phrase coined by Philip Siekevitz in a 1957 article of the same name. Some cells in some multicellular organisms lack mitochondria (for example, mature mammalian red blood cells). A large number of unicellular organisms, such as microsporidia, parabasalids and diplomonads, have reduced or transformed their mitochondria into other structures. One eukaryote, '' Monocercomonoides'', is known to have completely lost its mitochondria, and one multicellular orga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deep Submergence Vehicle
A deep-submergence vehicle (DSV) is a deep-diving crewed submersible that is self-propelled. Several navies operate vehicles that can be accurately described as DSVs. DSVs are commonly divided into two types: research DSVs, which are used for exploration and surveying, and DSRVs (Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle), which can be used for rescuing the crew of a sunken navy submarine, clandestine (espionage) missions (primarily installing wiretaps on undersea communications cables), or both. DSRVs are equipped with docking chambers to allow personnel ingress and egress via a manhole. The real-life feasibility of any DSRV-based rescue attempt is hotly debated, because the few available docking chambers of a stricken submarine may be flooded, trapping the sailors still alive in other dry compartments. The only attempt to rescue a stricken submarine with these so far (the Russian submarine ''Kursk'') ended in failure as the entire crew who survived the explosion had either suffocated o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DSV Alvin
''Alvin'' (DSV-2) is a crewed deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The vehicle was built by General Mills' Electronics Group in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Named to honor the prime mover and creative inspiration for the vehicle, Allyn Vine, ''Alvin'' was commissioned on 5 June 1964. The submersible is launched from the deep submergence support vessel , which is also owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by WHOI. The submersible has made more than 5,000 dives, carrying two scientists and a pilot, to observe the lifeforms that must cope with super-pressures and move about in total darkness, as well as exploring the wreck of ''Titanic''. Research conducted by ''Alvin'' has been featured in nearly 2,000 scientific papers. Design ''Alvin'' was designed as a replacement for bathyscaphes and other less maneuverable oceanographic vehicles. Its more nimble design was made ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
