When did decapods invade hydrothermal vents? Clues from the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans

Hydrothermal vents are typically located in midocean ridges and back-arc basins and are usually generated by the movement of tectonic plates. Life thrives in these environments despite the extreme conditions. In addition to chemoautotrophic bacteria, decapod crustaceans are dominant in many of the hydrothermal vents discovered to date. Contrary to the hypothesis that these species are remnants of relic fauna, increasing evidence supports the notion that hydrothermal vent decapods have diversified in more recent times with previous research attributing the origin of alvinocarid shrimps to the Miocene. This study investigated seven representative decapod species from four hydrothermal vents throughout the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans. A partitioned mix-model phylogenomic analysis of mitochondrial DNA produced a consistent phylogenetic topology of these vent-endemic species. Additionally, molecular dating analysis calibrated using multiple fossils suggested that both bythograeid crabs and alvinocarid shrimps originated in the late Mesozoic and early Cenozoic. Although of limited sampling, our estimates support the extinction/repopulation hypothesis, which postulates recent diversification times for most hydrothermal vent species due to their mass extinction by global deep-water anoxic/dysoxic events during the Late Cretaceous and Early Tertiary. The continental-derived property of the West Pacific province is compatible with the possibility that vent decapods diversified from ancestors from shallow-water regions such as cold seeps. Our results move us a step closer toward understanding the evolutionary origin of hydrothermal vent species and their distribution in the Western Pacific-Indian Ocean Region.