Diet of Haplognathia ruberrima (Gnathostomulida) in a Caribbean marine mangrove.

Haplognathia ruberrima is a cosmopolitan gnathostomulid species found in sulfur bacterial mats in mangroves in Guadeloupe (French West Indies). Haplognathia ruberrima presents a d13C value lower than all measured meiofaunal grazers and lower than the available measured food sources of this environment. This low d13C value can not be due to specific ingestion of 13C-depleted methanogenic bacteria because abundances of those bacteria are reduced in surficial and deep sediments as revealed by d13C of bacterial fatty acid. According to scanning electron microscope observations, no bacterial ectosymbionts were observed at the surface of the gnathostomulids, and transmission electronmicroscope views revealed the absence of bacterial endosymbionts. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis detected low levels of sulfur (0.32%+-0.8) in biological tissues of H. ruberrima, confirming the absence of thioautotrophic bacterial symbionts in these animals. Consequently, the low d13C value of H. ruberrima can not be due to the presence of sulfur-oxidizing symbionts but more probably to the selective and exclusive consumption of free-living, sulfuroxidizing bacteria