Occurrence and recent long-distance dispersal of deep-sea hydrothermal vent shrimps

Abstract

Deep-sea hydrothermal vents and methane seeps are extreme environments that have a high concentration of hydrogen sulphide. However, abundant unique invertebrates including shrimps of the family Bresiliidae have been found in such environments. The bresiliid shrimps are believed to have radiated in the Miocene (less than 20 Myr); however, the period when and the mechanisms by which they dispersed across the hydrothermal vents and cold seeps in oceans worldwide have not been clarified. In the present study, we collected the deep-sea blind shrimp Alvinocaris longirostris from the hydrothermal vent site in the Okinawa Trough and carried out the first investigation of the 18S rRNA gene of a bresiliid shrimp. The phylogenetic analysis revealed that the bresiliid shrimp is situated at an intermediate lineage within the infraorder Caridea and shows monophyly with palaemonid shrimps, which live in shallow sea and freshwater. Furthermore, the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene sequences were analysed to determine the phylogenetic relationship with known bresiliid shrimps. A. longirostris of the Okinawa Trough had two haplotypes of the COI gene, one of which was identical to the Alvinocaris sp. of the cold seeps in Sagami Bay. These results indicate that a long-distance dispersal of A. longirostris occurred possibly within the last 100,000 years.