Evolutionary process of deep-sea bathymodiolus mussels.

BACKGROUND: Since the discovery of deep-sea chemosynthesis-based communities, much work has been done to clarify their organismal and environmental aspects. However, major topics remain to be resolved, including when and how organisms invade and adapt to deep-sea environments; whether strategies for invasion and adaptation are shared by different taxa or unique to each taxon; how organisms extend their distribution and diversity; and how they become isolated to speciate in continuous waters. Deep-sea mussels are one of the dominant organisms in chemosynthesis-based communities, thus investigations of their origin and evolution contribute to resolving questions about life in those communities. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDING: We investigated worldwide phylogenetic relationships of deep-sea Bathymodiolus mussels and their mytilid relatives by analyzing nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4 (ND4) genes. Phylogenetic analysis of the concatenated sequence data showed that mussels of the subfamily Bathymodiolinae from vents and seeps were divided into four groups, and that mussels of the subfamily Modiolinae from sunken wood and whale carcasses assumed the outgroup position and shallow-water modioline mussels were positioned more distantly to the bathymodioline mussels. We provisionally hypothesized the evolutionary history of Bathymodilolus mussels by estimating evolutionary time under a relaxed molecular clock model. Diversification of bathymodioline mussels was initiated in the early Miocene, and subsequently diversification of the groups occurred in the early to middle Miocene. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The phylogenetic relationships support the "Evolutionary stepping stone hypothesis," in which mytilid ancestors exploited sunken wood and whale carcasses in their progressive adaptation to deep-sea environments. This hypothesis is also supported by the evolutionary transition of symbiosis in that nutritional adaptation to the deep sea proceeded from extracellular to intracellular symbiotic states in whale carcasses. The estimated evolutionary time suggests that the mytilid ancestors were able to exploit whales during adaptation to the deep sea.

Coexistence curve near the tricritical point in ternary polymer solutions.

Two-phase coexistence curves were measured for ternary solutions of bimodal polystyrene in methylcyclohexane with the molecular weight ratio near the tricritical value 23. Coexistence curves were determined by the refractive index method on a diagram of temperature versus volume fraction of total polystyrene. The diameter was strongly curved near the top. The double logarithmic plots of volume fraction difference between two coexisting phases versus reduced temperature yielded the critical exponent beta=0.250+/-0.005 for the tricritical solution and, 0.412+/-0.005 and 0.383+/-0.016 for solutions not far from the tricritical one. The former value could be compared with the classical tricritical exponent beta=1 / 4 and the latter values near 0.40 could be explained by a crossover between the ordinary critical exponent 0.32 or the tricritical exponents 1 / 4 and the classical exponent 1 / 2.