A new bacterial species is discovered after the eruption of the Tagoro submarine volcano in El Hierro Island

The submarine volcano Tagoro was created out of the volcanic eruption in El Hierro Island (Canary Islands), between late 2011 and early 2012.
The submarine volcano Tagoro was created out of the volcanic eruption in El Hierro Island (Canary Islands), between late 2011 and early 2012.
Research
(25/04/2017)

A scientific team has found a new microbial species -the bacterium Thiolava veneris- in the submarine volcano Tagoro, which was created out of the volcanic eruption in El Hierro Island (Canary Islands), between late 2011 and early 2012. The new bacterial community, found at 130 meters depth, creates a large matt of microbial filament -named “Venusʼ hair”- near the Tagoro, according to a research study published in the journal Nature, Ecology & Evolution, led by Professor Miquel Canals, head of the Consolidated Research Group of Marine Geosciences of the University of Barcelona, and Roberto Danovaro from the Università Politecnica delle Marche (Italy).

The submarine volcano Tagoro was created out of the volcanic eruption in El Hierro Island (Canary Islands), between late 2011 and early 2012.
The submarine volcano Tagoro was created out of the volcanic eruption in El Hierro Island (Canary Islands), between late 2011 and early 2012.
Research
25/04/2017

A scientific team has found a new microbial species -the bacterium Thiolava veneris- in the submarine volcano Tagoro, which was created out of the volcanic eruption in El Hierro Island (Canary Islands), between late 2011 and early 2012. The new bacterial community, found at 130 meters depth, creates a large matt of microbial filament -named “Venusʼ hair”- near the Tagoro, according to a research study published in the journal Nature, Ecology & Evolution, led by Professor Miquel Canals, head of the Consolidated Research Group of Marine Geosciences of the University of Barcelona, and Roberto Danovaro from the Università Politecnica delle Marche (Italy).

 

This is the first bacterial species associated with the volcanic activity of Tagoro, which was unknown so far. The article counts with the participation of the experts Galderic Lastras, David Amblàs, Anna Sánchez-Vidal, Jaime Frigola, Antoni M. Calafat, Rut Pedrosa and Xavier Rayo, from the Research Group on Marine Geosciences of the UB, and Jesús Rivera from Instituto Español de Ocenografia (Spanish Oceanographic Institute, IEO), among others.

When submarine volcanism transforms ocean floors

Most of the volcanic activity in our planet takes place in the ocean. The submarine eruption in El Hierro Island, in particular, continued during 138 days -from October 2001 to March 2012- and shaped a 9 square meter area in the ocean floor. This activity disrupted the local environmental conditions (higher temperature and acidity in waters, decrease of oxygen, more turbidity, among other effects).

“At a local level, this activity created a new submarine volcanic cone and slope deposits that expand up to more than a thousand meters deep. The eruption took place at a depth of 363 m, and at the end of the volcanic episode the seafloor raised up to 89 m depth, thus, there is an average rate of daily vertical growth of 2 m. Afterwards, a degassing process took place with hydrothermal vents, a period which can be considered to be active albeit diffuse”, says Miquel Canals, professor from the Department of Earth and Ocean Dynamics of the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Barcelona.

The eruption of Tagoro, which caused a severe impact on the marine life, stimulated the bacterial activity at the same time. So far, bacterial communities linked to the volcanic activity had been mostly studied in hydrothermal vents from mid-oceanic ridges. These extremophile organisms living in these ocean environments adapt their metabolism to get food and energy and survive under certain conditions which are limiting for other living beings.

Thiolava veneris: a new type of extremophile bacterial species

The bacterium Thiolava veneris is a new type and species of extremophile bacteria, which was so far unknown by the scientific community. According to the images of a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV), the new bacterial habitat covers around two thousand square meters in the volcano Tagoro -between 129 and 132 meters depth-, creating a mat built by bright filament structures (bacterial trichome or Venusʼ hair).

Phylogenomic analyses show that this new ocean floor prokaryote is close to other marine bacteria in terms of phylogenomics -in particular, close to the order of Thioploca, under the class of Gammaproteobacteria- which show a great metabolic plasticity to adapt to new extreme environments in ocean floors.

“The bacterial group in this new volcano shows a set of differential traits when compared to other bacteria” says Canals. “None of the identified genomic extracts has photosynthesis-related genes, so this process is ruled out from the microbial filament metabolism”. However, the bacterium has a notable metabolic plasticity to survive in submarine volcanic environments in the shallows. Regarding ecology, this means there is an initial process of restoration in biological communities which are more and more complex in the submarine habitats that have been disrupted by natural catastrophes, such as Tagoro in the Canary Islands”, he concludes.

“However, these new species are far from other areas with volcanic activity (such as the mid-Atlantic ridge) and therefore it generates doubts on its origins”, says Canals.

Tagoro: a natural laboratory for Biology and Earth Sciences

Since the submarine eruption of Tagoro took place in 2011, the team from the Research Group on Marine Geosciences of the UB has led several scientific studies which revealed unpublished aspects on the origin and evolution of the volcanic islands. Both this volcanic episode, which has been studied and supervised by research teams in real time, and its following evolution, make the Tagoro an excellent natural laboratory to study the phenomenon of the submarine volcanism.  

“While the eruption was still active, monitoring the morphological evolution of the new volcano showed the complexity of these episodes, with stages of steady growth and others that were slower and partial collapses in the new building and surrounding areas, among others. From a biological perspective, the ongoing recolonization process represents an extraordinary opportunity for science”, says Canals.