Discovery of indirect parasite life cycles at deep-sea hydrothermal vents
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Deep-sea hydrothermal vents are extreme, isolated, and ephemeral ecosystems populated by unique endemic fauna, making them a potentially challenging setting for the survival of parasites with indirect (multi-host or ‘complex’) life cycles. We examined the animal communities at a frequently disturbed hydrothermal vent field (9°50’N, East Pacific Rise) to explore whether parasites with indirect life cycles complete their life cycles within this island-like, ephemeral marine habitat, which has been previously hypothesized but is not known. Our dissections of individuals from 51 vent species revealed 7 morphogroups of parasitic flatworms (trematodes) including the genera Biospeedotrema , Caudotestis , and Neolebouria , and 4 life stages in the multi-host trematode life cycle. Adult trematode life stages lived in the vent fishes Thermarces cerberus and Thermichthys hollisi , while the intermediate life stages were found in a variety of crustacean, gastropod, and polychaete species. Genetic barcoding of the 18S, 28S, and ITS2 regions linked sequential life stages for some of the morphogroups, revealing the phylogenetic position and routes of transmission between hosts for vent trematodes. This study provides the most direct evidence yet that parasites very likely complete indirect life cycles in deep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems, with important implications for the persistence and diversity of parasites in disturbed environments.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".