RESEARCH ARTICLE Bone-Eating Worms Spread: Insights into Shallow-Water Osedax (Annelida, Siboglinidae) from Antarctic, Subantarctic, and Mediterranean Waters Sergi Taboada1,2*, Ana Riesgo1,2, Maria Bas1,2, Miquel A. Arnedo1,2, Javier Cristobo3, Greg W. Rouse4, Conxita Avila1,2 1 Department of Animal Biology, Faculty of Biology, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 2 Biodiversity Research Institute (IrBIO), Faculty of Biology, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 3 Centro Oceanográfico de Gijón, Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO), Gijón, Spain, 4 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California, United States of America *
[email protected] OPEN ACCESS Abstract Citation: Taboada S, Riesgo A, Bas M, Arnedo MA, Osedax, commonly known as bone-eating worms, are unusual marine annelids belonging Cristobo J, Rouse GW, et al. (2015) Bone-Eating to Siboglinidae and represent a remarkable example of evolutionary adaptation to a special- Worms Spread: Insights into Shallow-Water Osedax ized habitat, namely sunken vertebrate bones. Usually, females of these animals live (Annelida, Siboglinidae) from Antarctic, Subantarctic, and Mediterranean Waters. PLoS ONE 10(11): anchored inside bone owing to a ramified root system from an ovisac, and obtain nutrition e0140341. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0140341 via symbiosis with Oceanospirillales gamma-proteobacteria. Since their discovery, 26 Ose- Editor: Steffen Kiel, Naturhistoriska riksmuseet, dax operational taxonomic units (OTUs) have been reported from a wide bathymetric range SWEDEN in the Pacific, the North Atlantic, and the Southern Ocean. Using experimentally deployed Received: June 25, 2015 and naturally occurring bones we report here the presence of Osedax deceptionensis at very shallow-waters in Deception Island (type locality; Antarctica) and at moderate depths Accepted: August 21, 2015 near South Georgia Island (Subantarctic).