Sponge symbiosis is facilitated by adaptive evolution of larval sensory and attachment structures in barnacles.

ABSTRACT: Symbiotic relations and range of host usage are prominent in coral reefs and crucial to the stability of such systems. In order to explain how symbiotic relations are established and evolve, we used sponge-associated barnacles to ask three questions. (1) Does larval settlement on sponge hosts require novel adaptations facilitating symbiosis? (2) How do larvae settle and start life on their hosts? (3) How has this remarkable symbiotic lifestyle involving many barnacle species evolved? We found that the larvae (cyprids) of sponge-associated barnacles show a remarkably high level of interspecific variation compared with other barnacles. We document that variation in larval attachment devices are specifically related to properties of the surface on which they attach and metamorphose. Mapping o

SUBMITTER: Yu MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7287368 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature