Discovery of
chemoautotrophic symbiosis in the giant shipworm Kuphuspolythalamia (Bivalvia: Teredinidae) extends wooden-steps theory.
Olenid trilobites: the oldest known
chemoautotrophic symbionts?
Chemoautotrophic microbes (bacteria and archaea) have been found in deep-ocean sediments and at hydrothermal vents, where hot water flows out through newly formed volcanic rock at mid-ocean ridges.
Chemoautotrophic activity and nitrification in the oxygen minimum zone off Peru.
Studies on the
chemoautotrophic iron bacterium Ferrobacillus ferrooxidans : an improved medium and a harvesting procedure for securing high cell yields.
There is extensive bibliography concerning prokaryotes in mining environments, such as the
chemoautotrophic Acidothiobacillus ferrooxidans and other acidophilic Bacteria and Archeaon microorganisms (Evangelou and Zhang, 1995; Ehrlich, 1996; Banfield et al, 2000; Benner et al, 2000; Bond and Greg, 2000; Robbins, 2000; Johnson et al.
Such a subsurface habitat could support the sort of anaerobic
chemoautotrophic life that has been found on Earth.
Consequently, since we had found that
chemoautotrophic nitrification was the predominant nitrifying process in these acid pasture soils (Islam et al.
Nitrification is a two-step process in which N[H.sub.4.sup.+] is first oxidized to N[O.sub.2.sup.-] by
chemoautotrophic bacteria such as Nitrosomonas and the N[O.sub.2] is oxidized to N[O.sub.3.sup.-] by N[O.sub.2.sup.-]-oxidizing bacteria such as Nitrobacter.
They present different feeding modes (carnivores, herbivores, omnivores, deposit-feeders, symbiotic
chemoautotrophic bacteria), this plasticity could be the reason of their success in many environments (Beesley et al.
Chemoautotrophic bacteria, such as those that live associated with the vents of the ocean ridges, are the only benthic primary producers that are not photosynthetic.
In Thiobacillus ferrooxidans, an acidophilic
chemoautotrophic bacterium sensitive to mercury ions, a group of mercury-resistant strains, which volatilize mercury, has been isolated.