New insights in hydrothermal deep-sea vents microbial ecosystems – HOTDOG

Studying hydrothermal deep-sea vents ecosystems, some of the most intriguing and less investigated microbial ecosystems on Earth could provide unique opportunities to access fundamental knowledge on their both biodiversity and dynamic, while getting better understanding on how life expands its frontiers in the deep environment. The objective of the HOT DOG project concerns the acquisition of fundamental knowledge on the prokaryotic biodiversity and the dynamic of hydrothermal vents ecosystems. This will be realized thanks to coupled approaches from field to lab involving high-pressure microbiology, environmental sampling, fast screening pressurized miniaturized instrumentation, advanced transparent tools for in situ characterization, bioreactors platforms and numerical modeling. We will specifically consider chimney and close exiting plume environment exposed to a temperature ranging from 20 to 135°C, therefore meso-, thermo- and hyper-thermophile strains. The goal is to close the gap between sequence-based data and physiological and biochemical data by proposing new methodologies to isolate and cultivate a large diversity of the microorganisms inhabiting deep sea vents. Our specific targets include: (i) Identification and isolation of new deep sea vents microrganisms through sampling / cultural approaches without decompression from field to lab, (ii) The phenotyping of deep sea vents microbes thanks to fast screening HP / HT microfluidics approaches for determining the frontiers of life (iii) Investigating deep sea vents chimney microbes interaction, colonization and evolution strategies in porous confined environments and (iv) Evaluating the use of deep sea vents microbes in high pressure bio-processes.