Instance of a Heteroplasmic Mitogenome in Alvinocaridid Shrimp Mirocaris fortunata (Martin & Christiansen 1995) Found at the Moytirra Deep‐Sea High‐Temperature Hydrothermal Vent Field

ABSTRACT

In this study, we report the complete mitochondrial genome of the deep‐sea hydrothermal vent shrimp Mirocaris fortunata (Alvinocarididae) from shotgun sequencing data on an individual tail tissue. The 15,923‐bp‐long sequence displays 98.72% pairwise identity with its closest relative, Mirocaris indica . A significant proportion of the mitochondrial genome (0.63%) corresponds to heteroplasmic sites that were found on 14 of the 37 genes, including cox1 , though all such sites induce synonymous mutations. This level of heteroplasmy may serve as the first step for recombination of the mitogenome by paternal leakage and/or a less effective purifying selection in somatic tissues. We also take advantage of the shotgun deep sequencing strategy to assess the metagenomic composition of the sample and are able to detect other deep‐sea hydrothermal vent species present at the vent system.