Symbiotic Relationships With Bacteria Help Snails Adapt To The Deep Sea

What We Can't Sea

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Bacteria and snails have a special relationship that helps the snail adapt to its deep-sea environment. This episode explores this fascinating symbiotic relationship and how it benefits both creatures.

The deep sea often conjures images of an empty, barren seafloor, with little to no animal life. However, scattered along the bottom of the ocean are areas where life, somehow, finds a way. At hydrothermal vents, seawater that has seeped down into the earth’s crust comes up through cracks, mixing hot water and minerals with the surrounding colder deep ocean water. The chemical processes occurring here help to support bacteria, which in turn form symbiotic, or mutually beneficial, relationships with larger animals, such as tube worms, mussels, and snails. In these symbiotic relationships, the bacteria live in the larger host animal and use chemical energy to make organic matter, which the host then uses as food. In return, the bacteria likely have access to a stable environment.