Discover the incredible survival story of Antarctic marine worms, thanks to their bacterial companions. These specialized bacteria residing within three distinct species of Antarctic polychaetes produce proteins that prevent the worms from freezing to death, as revealed by Corinaldesi and her team in a recent study published in Science Advances. This groundbreaking finding highlights the crucial role that microbes play in supporting their hosts, a fact emphasized by microbial ecologist Amy Apprill from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who commended the study for shedding light on the still largely unexplored realm of host-microbe interactions in the ocean.
Corinaldesi’s team embarked on a journey to three coastal regions of Antarctica in the Ross Sea, where they collected ocean sediment hosting three prevalent marine worm species – two scavengers feeding on decaying organisms and one predator. Despite the frigid water temperatures hovering around -1° Celsius at these sites, the worms thrived. Upon returning to the lab in Italy, researcher Emanuela Buschi, now based at Anton Dohrn Zoological Station in Fano, conducted DNA analysis on the worms to identify the microbial communities residing within them.
2024-06-21 13:00:00
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