Exploring bone structural adaptation across the evolution of deep-sea teleost fishes

Deep-sea teleost fishes are a major component of oceanic ecosystems and biomass. How their anatomy adapted to this extreme environment is a key evolutionary biology question. In particular, the structure of their bones is proposed to be peculiar to deal with water pressure and the scarcity of resources, but this has not been properly tested because no comparative framework exists on the matter. In this proposal, we aim at building such a framework of comparative fish bone microstructure across deep-sea teleost diversity. We will use established quantitative methods based on µCT data, to compare bone compactness in a broad range of species. This requires acquiring 3D microtomographic data with enhanced contrast and at a high-throughput, conditions that are ideally met at the ESRF BM18 or BM05 beamlines.