BIOL 10511 Lecture 15

Animal Diversity 3
Body plans and the evolution of internal
cavities
Where Does Our Head Come From? Brainless Sea Anemone Sheds New Light On the Evolutionary Origin of the Head. ScienceDaily Feb. 20,
2013 A research group at the Sars Centre in Norway has shed new light on the evolutionary origin of the
head. They showed that in a simple, brainless sea anemone, the same genes that control head
development in higher animals regulate the development of the front end of the swimming larvae. In many
animals, the brain is located in a specific structure, the head, together with sensory organs and often
together with the mouth. However, there are even more distantly related animals, which have a nervous
system, but no brain, like sea anemones and corals. In this study a research group used the sea anemone
Nematostella vectensis to find out if one of the ends of the sea anemone corresponds to the head of higher
animals. To do this they studied the function of genes that control head development in higher animals
during the embryonic development of the starlet sea anemone. "Despite looking completely different, it
has become clear over the last decade, that all animals have a similar repertoire of genes, including those
that are required to make the head of higher animals" , says first author and PhD-student Chiara Sinigaglia.

When the sea anemone is in the larval stage it swims. As adults, the sea anemone stands with one end on
the sea floor and uses long tentacles on its upper end to catch small animals which they stuff into the only
body opening in the middle of the ring of tentacles."Based on the appearance of the adult animals, the
lower end of these animals has traditionally been called the foot and the upper end the head," explains
Rentzsch.What the research group found out was that in the sea anemone the "head gene" function is
located at the end that corresponds to the "foot" of the adult animals. The key was to study the larvae of
the sea anemones when they still move around."The larvae swims with the "foot" end forward and this end carries their main sense organ, so
at this stage it looks more like this might be their head," says Rentzsch. And indeed, the "head genes" function on this side of the animals. Sea
anemones and all higher animals, including humans, share a common brainless ancestor which lived between 600 and 700 million years
ago."By revealing the function of "head genes" in Nematostella, we now understand better how and from where the head and brain of higher
animals evolved," Sinigaglia and Rentzsch explain.

By Trying It All, Predatory Sea Slug Learns What Not to Eat Science Daily June 6, 2013
Researchers have found that a type of predatory sea slug that usually isn't picky when it
comes to what it eats has more complex cognitive abilities than previously thought,
allowing it to learn the warning cues of dangerous prey and thereby avoid them in the
future. Pleurobranchaea californica is a deep-water species of sea slug found off the west
coast of the United States. It has a relatively simple neural circuitry and set of behaviors. It
is a generalist feeder, meaning, as leader of the study Rhanor Gillette put it, that members
of this species "seem to try anything once." Another sea slug species, Flabellina iodinea,
commonly known as the Spanish shawl because of the orange outgrowths called cerata
that cover its purple back, also lives off the west coast. Unlike Pleurobranchaea, however,
the Spanish shawl eats only one type of food, an animal called Eudendrium ramosum.
According to Gillette, the Spanish shawl digests the Eudendrium's entire body except for its embryonic, developing stinging cells. The Spanish
shawl instead transports these stinging cells to its own cerata where they mature, thereby co-opting its victim's body parts for its own defense.
Gillette's Pleurobranchaea-Flabellina research began with a happy accident that involved showing a lab visitor Pleurobranchaea's penchant for
predation. "I had a Pleurobranchaea in a small aquarium that we were about to do a physiological experiment with, and my supplier from
Monterey had just sent me these beautiful Spanish shawls," I placed the Spanish shawl into the aquarium. The Pleurobranchaea approached,
smelled, and bit the purple and orange newcomer. However, the Flabellina's cerata stung the Pleurobranchaea, the Spanish shawl was
rejected and left to do its typical "flamenco dance of escape," and Pleurobranchaea also managed to escape with an avoidance turn. Some
minutes later, his curiosity piqued, Gillette placed the Spanish shawl back into the aquarium with the Pleurobranchaea. Rather than try to eat
the Spanish shawl a second time, the Pleurobranchaea immediately started its avoidance turn.  "I had never seen that before! ….
"We already knew the neuronal circuitry that mediates this kind of decision," Gillette said. "Finding this highly selective type of learning
enlarges our perspective of function, in terms of the animal's ability to make cost-benefit decisions that place it on a rather higher plane of
cognitive ability than previously thought for many sea slugs."