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Beck, Lothar A.
Fachbereich Biologie,Der Phillips Universtaet, D-35032 Marburg, Germany: Beck@mailer.uni.marburg.de
An unusual black mesogastropod, Ifremeria nautilei (= Olgaconcha tufari) from the. deep sea hydrothermal vent site Vienna Woods in the Manus Back-Arc Basin (western Pacific) contains sulfur-oxidizing and methane-oxidizing bacteria. The snails inhabit warm vent zones (up to 30 1/2 C) of active black smokers and are exposed to sulfide and methane rich hydrothermal emanations (pH 3.6). Ultrastructural examination (TEM, SEM) proves the presence of numerous thread-like sulfur-oxidizing bacteria and some coccoid methane-oxidizing organisms in specialized bacteriocytes of the gill and also some putative methane-oxidizing coccoid bacteria in the interstice of gill cells. Morpho-functional evidence shows an enormous enlargement of the gill as well as the recontruction of the pallial complex for the purpose of ciliary filter-feeding and of space for bacterial symbionts.
SEM and TEM examinations detected endosymbiotic organisms in the extremely ·enlarged gill of another hot-vent gastropod, Hirtopelta sp. n. from East Pacific Rise 21 1/2 S. Bacterial symbionts were found to live in vacuoles of numerous bacteriocytes sites in the gill leaflets of this archeogastropod.
SEM examination of the hot-vent bivalve Bathymodiolus brevior from hydrothermal sites at Fiji Basin also revealed gill bacteriocytes which contain bacteria in their vacuoles
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