Honors College Thesis
 

Diversity and distribution of bacterial symbionts in Vesicomyid clams along the Cascadia Margin

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/honors_college_theses/8c97kx89v

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  • Deep-sea chemosynthetic ecosystems remain a frontier in marine science. Essential to their role in the ocean ecosystem are endosymbiotic bacteria which support larger megafauna, including the widespread symbiont-bearing Vesicomyid clams. The diversity and characteristics of these symbionts in these clams is only just beginning to be understood with technological advances in sample collection and genome sequencing. This study examined Vesicomyid symbionts from sites along the Cascadia Margin using 16S rRNA gene of 149 clams from ten sites across eight methane seeps, followed by genomic sequencing of the two dominant phylotypes. Two genera of symbiont were found to be the symbionts of the clams across the Cascadia Margin, and both fell within the family Thioglobaceae. The majority of clams hosted a single type of symbiont, but some individual clams hosted both taxa. One symbiont showed evidence of being in a state of reductive genome evolution through loss of critical genes and decreased GC content, and was closely related to other symbionts which showed the same characteristics. Through identifying the diversity of the symbionts present in clams from methane seeps we have advanced our understanding of margin biodiversity and identified a pattern of evolution within these charismatic seep fauna.
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  • This research was supported by NOAA OE Grant NA19OAR0110301 to AR Thurber.
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