Orthonectida

Orthonectids
Two different female Orthonectids
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
(unranked): Mesozoa
Phylum: Orthonectida
Giard, 1877 [1][2]
Species

See text.

Orthonectida (/ˌɔːrθəˈnɛktɪdə, -θ-/[3]) is a small phylum of poorly known parasites of marine invertebrates[4] that are among the simplest of multi-cellular organisms. Members of this phylum are known as orthonectids.

Biology

The adults are microscopic wormlike animals, consisting of a single layer of ciliated outer cells surrounding a mass of sex cells. They swim freely within the bodies of their hosts, which include flatworms, polychaete worms, bivalve molluscs, and echinoderms. They are gonochoristic, with separate male and female individuals.[5]

When they are ready to reproduce, the adults leave the host, and sperm from the males penetrate the bodies of the females to achieve internal fertilisation. The resulting zygote develops into a ciliated larva that escapes from the mother to seek out new hosts. Once it finds a host, the larva loses its cilia and develops into a syncytial plasmodium larva. This, in turn, breaks up into numerous individual cells that become the next generation of adults.[5]

Classification

The phylum consists of about 20 known species, of which Rhopalura ophiocomae is the best-known.[4] The phylum is not divided into classes or orders, and contains just two families.

Although originally described in 1877 as a class,[6] and sometimes characterized as an order of the phylum Mesozoa, recent study shows that orthonectids are quite different from the rhombozoans, the other group in Mesozoa.[4] The genome of one species, Intoshia linei, has been sequenced.[7] These animals are simplified spiralians. Their position in the phylogenetic tree has yet to be determined. The genome data confirms the earlier proposal that these organisms are spiralians based on their morphology.[8]

Known species:

Phylum Orthonectida

References

  1. H. Furuya & J. van der Land (2010). "Orthonectida". World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  2. "Orthonectida Giard, 1877". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved January 12, 2011.
  3. "Orthonectida". Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
  4. 1 2 3 Ben Hanelt; David Van Schyndel; Coen M. Adema; Louise A. Lewis; Eric S. Loker (November 1996). "The phylogenetic position of Rhopalura ophiocomae (Orthonectida) based on 18S ribosomal DNA sequence analysis". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 13 (9): 1187–1191. PMID 8896370. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a025683.
  5. 1 2 Robert D. Barnes (1982). Invertebrate Zoology. Philadelphia, PA: Holt-Saunders International. pp. 247–248. ISBN 0-03-056747-5.
  6. Alfred Mathieu Giard (1877). "Sur les Orthonectida, classe nouvelle d'animaux parasites des Échinodermes et des Turbellariés". Comptes Rendus (in French). 85 (18): 812–814.
  7. Mikhailov KV, Slyusarev GS, Nikitin MA, Logacheva MD, Penin AA, Aleoshin VV, Panchin YV (2016) The genome of Intoshia linei affirms Orthonectids as highly simplified spiralians. pii: S0960-9822(16)30458-4. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.05.007
  8. Sliusarev GS (2008) Phylum Orthonectida: morphology, biology, and relationships to other multicellular animals. Zh Obshch Biol 69(6):403-427
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