Dataset Information

Sensory sea slugs: Towards decoding the molecular toolkit required for a mollusc to smell.

ABSTRACT: Molluscs are a large and diverse group of aquatic and terrestrial animals that rely heavily on chemical communication. Aplysia is an excellent model in which to investigate and develop breakthrough principles into the molecular aspects of chemoreception in molluscs. We recently identified a large family of rhodopsin-like G-protein coupled receptors expressed in the chemosensory rhinophore of Aplysia that may be key components of sensory detection. Here, we summarize these findings and provide further insight into the molecular olfactory toolkit used by Aplysia, by taking advantage of our knowledge of their attraction pheromones. Our characterization of rhinophore genes upregulated following pheromone stimulation helps explain the dynamics of olfactory gene expression following chemical stimulation.

SUBMITTER: Cummins SF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2974070 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Sensory sea slugs: Towards decoding the molecular toolkit required for a mollusc to smell.

Cummins Scott F SF Degnan Bernard M BM

Communicative & integrative biology 20100901 5

Molluscs are a large and diverse group of aquatic and terrestrial animals that rely heavily on chemical communication. Aplysia is an excellent model in which to investigate and develop breakthrough principles into the molecular aspects of chemoreception in molluscs. We recently identified a large family of rhodopsin-like G-protein coupled receptors expressed in the chemosensory rhinophore of Aplysia that may be key components of sensory detection. Here, we summarize these findings and provide fu ...[more]

PMID: 21057630

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Project description:BackgroundMany marine meiofaunal species are reported to have wide distributions, which creates a paradox considering their hypothesized low dispersal abilities. Correlated with this paradox is an especially high taxonomic deficit for meiofauna, partly related to a lower taxonomic effort and partly to a high number of putative cryptic species. Molecular-based species delineation and barcoding approaches have been advocated for meiofaunal biodiversity assessments to speed up description processes and uncover cryptic lineages. However, these approaches show sensitivity to sampling coverage (taxonomic and geographic) and the success rate has never been explored on mesopsammic Mollusca.ResultsWe collected the meiofaunal sea-slug Pontohedyle (Acochlidia, Heterobranchia) from 28 localities worldwide. With a traditional morphological approach, all specimens fall into two morphospecies. However, with a multi-marker genetic approach, we reveal multiple lineages that are reciprocally monophyletic on single and concatenated gene trees in phylogenetic analyses. These lineages are largely concordant with geographical and oceanographic parameters, leading to our primary species hypothesis (PSH). In parallel, we apply four independent methods of molecular based species delineation: General Mixed Yule Coalescent model (GMYC), statistical parsimony, Bayesian Species Delineation (BPP) and Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD). The secondary species hypothesis (SSH) is gained by relying only on uncontradicted results of the different approaches ('minimum consensus approach'), resulting in the discovery of a radiation of (at least) 12 mainly cryptic species, 9 of them new to science, some sympatric and some allopatric with respect to ocean boundaries. However, the meiofaunal paradox still persists in some Pontohedyle species identified here with wide coastal and trans-archipelago distributions.ConclusionsOur study confirms extensive, morphologically cryptic diversity among meiofauna and accentuates the taxonomic deficit that characterizes meiofauna research. We observe for Pontohedyle slugs a high degree of morphological simplicity and uniformity, which we expect might be a general rule for meiofauna. To tackle cryptic diversity in little explored and hard-to-sample invertebrate taxa, at present, a combined approach seems most promising, such as multi-marker-barcoding (i.e., molecular systematics using mitochondrial and nuclear markers and the criterion of reciprocal monophyly) combined with a minimum consensus approach across independent methods of molecular species delineation to define candidate species.

Dataset Information

Sensory sea slugs: Towards decoding the molecular toolkit required for a mollusc to smell.

Publications

Sensory sea slugs: Towards decoding the molecular toolkit required for a mollusc to smell.

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