How Tubeworm Babies Are Dispersed to Colonize New Vent Sites Travel to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, plunge two miles to the seafloor near an underwater volcano, release a strawberry seed in the pitch darkness, and figure out where it will land. The findings are reported in the May 3 issue of Nature. Please click on photos to obtain print-quality images. Photos must be credited to University of Delaware.
Hydrothermal vents are very ephemeral.
Scientists have often wondered how tubeworms, which are sessile creatures and can't move about the seafloor, wind up at new vent sites. To find out how l ong a j ourney baby tubeworms can survive, the scienti sts first had to figure out how to culture them in the lab. Tubeworm larvae must withstand these cold temperatures as they are dispersed by the currents, hopefully to a home in warmer water near a vent site. The scientists found that tubeworm larvae do not develop a mouth in the first 34 days of development, so they can't obtain energy from food during this period to help them weather their ride on the currents. Instead, they must rely on an internal fuel supply.