We would like to acknowledge K. Montooth, P. Hudson, and five anonymous reviewers for providing helpful comments on drafts of the manuscript. We are indebted to J. Freytag, S. Dattagupta, D. Bergquist, R. Carney, and R. Sassen for the many discussions and advice provided. EEC acknowledges funding from the Center for Environmental Chemistry and Geochemistry at Pennsylvania State University and the Nancy Foster Scholarship Program at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This work was supported by the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the NOAA National Undersea Research Program, and the National Science Foundation.
Competing interests. The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.  Author contributions. EEC, MAA, and CRF conceived and designed the experiments. EEC performed the experiments and analyzed the data. KS and RSA contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools. EEC, MAA, KS, and CRF wrote the paper.
Citation: Cordes EE, Arthur MA, Shea K, Arvidson RS, Fisher CR (2005) Modeling the mutualistic interactions between tubeworms and microbial consortia. PLoS Biol 3(3): e77.
Abbreviations
DIC dissolved inorganic carbon
DOC dissolved organic carbon ULS