Inducible Defenses with a "Twist": Daphnia barbata Abandons Bilateral Symmetry in Response to an Ancient Predator.

ABSTRACT: Predation is one of the most important drivers of natural selection. In consequence a huge variety of anti-predator defenses have evolved in prey species. Under unpredictable and temporally variable predation pressure, the evolution of phenotypically plastic defensive traits is favored. These "inducible defenses", range from changes in behavior, life history, physiology to morphology and can be found in almost all taxa from bacteria to vertebrates. An important group of model organisms in ecological, evolutionary and environmental research, water fleas of the genus Daphnia (Crustacea: Cladocera), are well known for their ability to respond to predators with an enormous variety of inducible morphological defenses. Here we report on the "twist", a body torsion, as a so far unrecognized induc

SUBMITTER: Herzog Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4757099 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature