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Settlement of cyprid larvae of Balanus balanoides and Elminius modestus induced by extracts of adult barnacles and other marine animals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

V. N. Larman
Affiliation:
N.E.R.C. Unit of Marine Invertebrate Biology, Marine Science Laboratories, Menai Bridge, Anglesey
P. A. Gabbott
Affiliation:
N.E.R.C. Unit of Marine Invertebrate Biology, Marine Science Laboratories, Menai Bridge, Anglesey

Extract

Crisp & Meadows (1962, 1963) have shown that aqueous extracts of whole barnacles, when applied to an inert test surface renders the surface attractive to barnacle cyprids thus simulating the gregarious response displayed at settlement. The factor responsible for promoting the settlement of cyprids of Balanus balanoides has been shown to be nondialysable, resistant to boiling in aqueous solution, and can be fractionated by precipitation with ammonium sulphate (Crisp & Meadows, 1962, 1963; Gabbott & Larman, 1971). In their 1962 paper, Crisp & Meadows showed that the settlement factor was present in untreated extracts of all the arthropod groups they examined (including Carcinus maenas) and in extracts of two species of sponges and the fish Blennius pholis. Extracts of other animals and plants were not active. In particular, untreated extracts of the bivalves Mytilus edulis and Ostrea edulis were inactive when assayed against cyprids of B. balanoides. Recently one of us has shown that boiled extracts, partially purified by precipitation with ammonium sulphate, of whole barnacles (B. balanoides, Elminius modestus and B. hameri), crab carapace (Carcinus maenas), whole heads of the blenny (Blennius pholis) and of the body tissues (excluding the shell) of O. edulis and M. edulis, all contain a characteristic group of acidic proteins, or protein-carbohydrate complexes, with iso-electric points in the range pH 4.0–6.0 (Larman, 1975). This finding has prompted us to re-examine the specificity of the settlement response in barnacles.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1975

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