gill symbiont of alvinocaridid shrimps16S rRNA gene

Shrimps of the family Alvinocarididae with ectosymbionts in gills are endemic species to deep sea chemosynthetic ecosystems. Among them, <i>Alvinocaris longirostris</i> and <i>Shinkaicaris leurokolos</i> occupy different ecological niches within the same hydrothermal vent in Okinawa Trough, of which <i>A. longirostris</i> inhabits on mussel beds surrounding the base of hydrothermal vents (ALHV), while <i>S. leurokolos</i> lives tightly close to the vent (SLHV). In addition, <i>A. longirostris</i> also exists in a methane seep of the South China Sea (ALMS). In this study, full-length 16S rRNA sequences of the gill symbionts of two alvinocaridid species from different chemosynthetically ecological niches were first captured by single-molecule real-time sequencing.