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Microbial Communities Surrounding an Underwater Volcano Near the Island of El Hierro (Canary Islands)

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El Hierro Island

Part of the book series: Active Volcanoes of the World ((AVOLCAN))

Abstract

Underwater hydrothermal systems release nutrient-rich fluids that are favorable for microbial activity. This allows the growth of a plethora of microorganisms that can be found inhabiting hydrothermal plumes, metalliferous sediments, or forming dense microbial biofilms or mats on the surrounding of the vents. Most of the current knowledge on the microbiology associated with underwater volcanic activity comes from the study of deep-sea hydrothermal vents. However, much less is known about shallow underwater hydrothermal systems. The submarine volcanic eruption that took place near El Hierro (Canary Islands) in October 2011 and gave rise to the Tagoro volcano, located only 1.8 km from land and approximately 89 m below the sea surface, provided a rare occasion to study almost in real time the microbiology associated with an underwater eruptive process, from its birth to the current degassing state, allowing investigations of its effects on the surrounding pelagic and benthic communities. In this chapter, we summarize what is known 10 years after the formation of the Tagoro submarine volcano, and we discuss what questions should be pursued in order to foster our knowledge of the microbiology associated with this volcano and its surrounding waters.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all people and institutions involved in the ten years spent monitoring the Tagoro submarine volcano, in particular, the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO-CSIC), and the crew of the R/V Ramon Margalef and R/V Angeles Alvariño. Special thanks to the book editor, Pablo González, for his support during the writing process of this chapter, and to David L. Kirchman and another anonymous reviewer for critically reviewing it. We would also like to thank Ainslie Hone for proofreading this chapter. The authors received funding from projects BIMBACHE (IEO-2011-2012), RAPROCAN-III (IEO-2010-2012), VULCANA-I (IEO-2015-2017), VULCANA-II (IEO-2018-2020), and VULCANA-III (IEO-2021-2023) from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO-CSIC), funding from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad del Gobierno de España (MINECO) and FEDER through VULCANO-I (CTM2012-36317) and VULCANO-II (CTM2014-51837-R) projects, and from the Fundación Caja-Canarias through CYCLOVENT (2019SP18) project. I. Ferrera received the support of the Fundación BBVA through the ‘Becas Leonardo a Investigadores y Creadores Culturales’ 2019 Program and M. Sebastián had the institutional support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S). This publication reflects the views of only the authors, and their institutions and funding agencies cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro Oceanográfico de Málaga, Instituto Español de Oceanografía, IEO-CSIC, 29640, Fuengirola, Málaga, Spain

    Isabel Ferrera

  2. Centro Oceanográfico de Canarias, Instituto Español de Oceanografía, IEO-CSIC, C/ Farola del Mar, nº22, 38180, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain

    Jesús M. Arrieta & Eugenio Fraile-Nuez

  3. Instituto de Ciencias del Mar, ICM-CSIC, Pg. Marítim de La Barceloneta, 37-49, 08003, Barcelona, Spain

    Marta Sebastián

Authors
  1. Isabel Ferrera
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  2. Jesús M. Arrieta
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  4. Eugenio Fraile-Nuez
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Correspondence to Isabel Ferrera .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Volcanology Research Group, Department of Life and Earth Sciences, Instituto de Productos Naturales y Agrobiologia, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain

    Pablo J. González

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Ferrera, I., Arrieta, J.M., Sebastián, M., Fraile-Nuez, E. (2023). Microbial Communities Surrounding an Underwater Volcano Near the Island of El Hierro (Canary Islands). In: González, P.J. (eds) El Hierro Island. Active Volcanoes of the World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35135-8_10

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