{"id":21491,"date":"2017-05-15T16:16:57","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T23:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-hakamagwp.pantheonsite.io\/?post_type=custom_news&p=21491"},"modified":"2017-11-16T16:20:42","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T00:20:42","slug":"tiny-zombie-worms-are-beavers-deep","status":"publish","type":"custom_news","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/news\/tiny-zombie-worms-are-beavers-deep\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Zombie Worms Are the Beavers of the Deep"},"content":{"rendered":"

Osedax<\/em> worms, also known as zombie worms, have a taste for the macabre. After all, they eat bones. Specifically, whale bones that have sunk to the bottom of the sea. (Though they\u2019ll also eat cow<\/a> bones, if they happen to sink their way.) Resembling clusters of floppy, hot-pink feathers, these mouthless worms<\/a> drill into skeletons, set down roots, and release acid that breaks down the bone so that they can absorb the luscious fat inside.<\/p>\n

New research shows that this novel adaptation has effects that reverberate throughout the marine ecosystem. A recent study<\/a> by a team led by Joan Alfaro-Lucas of Brazil\u2019s University of S\u00e3o Paulo reveals that by boring into whale bones, Osedax<\/em> worms create habitats for a wide array of species.<\/p>\n

Alfaro-Lucas knows this because he spent a year sorting through the creatures found in the backbones of an Antarctic minke whale skeleton. The vertebrae\u2014the only remains of the whale, which had fallen to a depth of over four kilometers off the coast of Rio de Janeiro\u2014were collected by researchers using the submersible HOV Shinkai 6500<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the lab, Alfaro-Lucas noticed that there was something strange about the whale vertebrae: four were more heavily pocked with holes than the other five. The more degraded bones were also embedded with Osedax<\/em>, while those that were more intact were Osedax<\/em>-free.<\/p>\n

The team found that vertebrae that had Osedax<\/em> worms living inside had three times as many colonizers as well, mainly roundworms and bristle worms. Osedax<\/em>-filled vertebrae also contained twice as many total species, including rare ones that were absent from the other bones.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that these holes and degraded areas can be used by other animals as a shelter, a place to feed on inner bone compounds, and an entrance to inner bone matrices,\u201d says Alfaro-Lucas.<\/p>\n

The findings suggest that Osedax<\/em> are ecosystem engineers, creatures that create, transform, or destroy habitats\u2014essentially, the Brahmas and Shivas of an ecosystem. It\u2019s what beavers do when they dam streams, making ponds that attract more diverse birds<\/a> and reptiles<\/a> than the flowing streams did. Elephants<\/a> do it, too, by digging pits, knocking down trees, and even creating shelter for the frogs<\/a> that choose to call blobs of elephant dung home.<\/p>\n

Part of what distinguishes the already peculiar Osedax<\/em> worms is that the ecosystem they modify consists of sunken bones. According to Nicholas Higgs, deputy director of the Marine Institute at England\u2019s Plymouth University, who was not involved in the study, whale skeletons resemble island habitats for the creatures that colonize them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re really interesting model animals for understanding dispersal in the deep ocean,\u201d says Higgs. \u201cOnce whale skeletons are broken down by the Osedax<\/em>, once they\u2019re gone, those populations will die out and the only way they carry on is by their larvae drifting and finding another carcass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hopefully, for them, Osedax<\/em> will get there first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Osedax worms, also known as zombie worms, have a taste for the macabre. After all, they eat bones. Specifically, whale bones that have sunk to the bottom of the sea. (Though they\u2019ll also eat cow bones, if they happen to <\/p>\n

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