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International Journal of Zoology and Applied Biosciences Research Article
Microbial mutualism in boring clams (Tridacna crocea): Ally shoring of oceans
Bhavya K, Syam S and Sowmya P
Year : 2023 | Volume: 8 | Issue: 4 | Pages: 41-49
Received on: 04/07/2023
Revised on: 04/08/2023
Accepted on:
Published on:
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Bhavya K, Syam S and Sowmya P( 2023).
Microbial mutualism in boring clams (Tridacna crocea): Ally shoring of oceans
. International Journal of Zoology and Applied Biosciences, 8( 4), 41-49.
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Abstract
Ecosystems in the ocean are highly efficient in the recycling of energy and matter. Most of the carbon fixed is recycled because net carbon burial in terrestrial systems and export to the ocean via rivers. Heterotrophs efficiently recycle organic matter because they depend on the energy in organic matter. However, heterotrophs cannot use all organic energy because some is shunted into metabolites such as ammonium, and under anoxic conditions into reduced substances such as sulphide. These reduced inorganic compounds are used by chemo (litho) autotrophs to obtain energy for inorganic carbon fixation. Host - associated microbial symbionts are critical to the conversion of inorganic carbon into organic biomass (Beinart, R.A., 2019). Boring clams belongs to family Teredinidae, (Shipworms) are found throughout the world’s oceans. Many shipworms eat wood, assisted by cellulases from the intracellular symbiotic gammaproteobacteria that inhabit their gills. Other shipworms (Kuphus polythalamius) also relying on gill-dwelling gammaproteobacteria for sulphur oxidation (Altamia et al., 2020) and Methane Oxidation. The gill symbionts Teredinibacter turnerae T7901 and related strains are among the richest sources of Biosynthetic Gene Clusters (BGCs), comparable in content to famous producers of commercial importance such as Streptomyces spp. This implies that shipworms might be a good source of new compounds for drug discovery (Altamia et al., 2020).
Keywords
Boring clams, Microbial symbionts, Sulphur oxidation, Xylotrepetic.
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© The Author(s) 2025. This article is published by International Journal of Zoology and Applied Biosciences under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (creativecommons.org), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
