Niklas Dreyer
Facetotectans (also known as larvae-Y) have been a mystery since their discovery in the nineteenth century. In the image, a Cypris larva, or cyprid-y
Not all perceives are limited to settling on rocks or ships. Some invade crabs, growing like a parasite root system that hits its bodies.
A mysterious group of Curriped Crustaceans, which gives the name of Larvae-anddisconcerting scientists for over a century: no one knows what they become in their adulthood.
Genetic evidence found in a recently published in Current Biology now reveal that these crustaceans are related to the perceptionsand that can also parasitizehiding within other organisms.
When we think of realizing it, we usually imagine creatures with shells attached to the sides of boats or quay, or even whales. However, there are realization that they are fixed in other animals and do not just give a “ride”: they end up literary kidnap your host.
“Instead of gathering a rock or something, they stick to a host, often a crab, and Inject this hostliving a lifetime as a network of roots that grows through it, ”explains James BernotProfessor at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut and co-author of the study, quoted by.
“It’s almost like a fungal network or a plant root system. They do not have a real body as we think the bodies of animals, ”adds the researcher.
Bernot explains that The perceives are crustaceans, like crabs or Cameroon, and developed unique survival strategies. For example, they move on a larva way that nothing freely to a state in which they live the rest of their lives permanently fixed to the substrate that they choose.
The particularly enigmatic group of “larvae-y”, also known as Guyit resembles young people realize.
The enigmatic larvae-y, group also known as Guyhave been studied in plankton samples since the nineteenth century, but, according to Bernot, the true mystery is to find out what they become; in fact, so far, its adulthood has never been observed.
Although this element remains unanswered, in the new study researchers are approaching the solution.
To try to understand how the larvae fit into the tree of life, the researchers collected more than 3,000 of these small crustaceans and analyzed their genes, sequencing transcriptoma, which is similar to a genomebut represents the express RNA.
“Finally we can confirm, in the field of great data science, that they are, in fact, related to the perceives, But they are not closely linked to None of the others perceive parasites“, diz Bernot.
“It was interesting to test this Building a huge tree of life For all crustaceans, and then add this small branch of the larvae, this very unknown group, to this larger tree, and we have seen that they are related to the perceives, but more like distant cousins”Details the investigator.
“One of the better evidence that the larvae-Y become parasites is that if we expose them to crustacean growth hormones, they break from their small way to larvate swim to a small body, similar to a slugwhich is similar to what you perceive parasites do when they enter a host, ”explains Bernot.
“The fact that, If we give them hormonesalso change to this form similar to a slug, suggests that they become parasites in some LugaR, but we still don’t know what host. Being hidden inside the body of another animal may explain why we do not find adulthood of the larvae yet, ”concludes the investigator.
Although these crustaceans are uncommon and largely unknown, with only 17 species described so far, Bernot says some of his co -authors have discovered more than 100 new and different species in a single port in Japan. There is still much to learn about these enigmatic animals.
“We know that others perceive parasitesAZEM Strange things. Those who grow as roots within crabs castrate their hosts, making them unable to reproduce. Make the hostsmaking them think they are pregnant, so they begin to take care of a mass that grows outside the body, but this mass It is part of the perceive and not the host eggs“, diz Bernot.
“And even if they infect a male crab, it becomes feminine and begins to behave like a pregnant female. The larvae can play equally impactful papers in ecosystems, but we will only know when we find out what hosts live and what they do there,” he adds.
As the sequencing of the transcriptoma of the larvae showed that they are not related to parasites, Bernot states that it is likely that the larvae-Y and the parasites perceive have evolved by evolutionary convergence.
“As they are probably both parasites and do similar things, they have evolved similar strategies to settle on a host and become this larva lar. It’s amazing to think that this strange and unique lifestyle has evolved several times, ”concludes Bernot.
