Asexual brooding in the sea-anemone Actinia schmidti: is temperature a key factor?
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1
Instituto Universitário de Ciências Psicológicas, Sociais e da Vida, Portugal
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2
Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente (MARE), Portugal
Although the majority of sea anemone species exhibit variations of sexual and asexual reproduction, there is a lack of data concerning the use of these different forms of reproduction in natural conditions. Actinia schmidti Monteiro, Thorpe and Solé-Cava, 1997 is distributed in the Northeastern Atlantic from the Bay of Biscay to Morocco and in the Mediterranean coastline. In its original description, this species is considered to reproduce sexually and not to perform brooding within the gastrovascular cavity, but recent works contradict this statement. In the present study, the seasonality of brooding in A. schmidti on the Portuguese west coast was investigated Throught the course of a year. Active peaks of viviparous reproduction were recorded during the summer months and decreased in the remaining seasons, suggesting that temperature plays a major role. In order to clarify the effect of temperature in brooding, an experimental study was performed in artificially controlled conditions. Twenty-one individuals were half-sectioned and left to heal. Each of the clones produced was kept during two months in different tanks, at distinct water temperatures. At higher temperatures, the number of adults inclubating polyps and the total number of brooded polyps were higher, altough these differences were not significant. However, these results can be influenced by a low sample size and or low temperature amplitude in the experimental conditions.
Keywords:
asexual reproduction,
Cnidaria,
Anemone,
brooding,
high temperature,
Portugal
Conference:
IMMR'18 | International Meeting on Marine Research 2018, Peniche, Portugal, 5 Jul - 6 Jul, 2018.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Biodiversity, Conservation and Coastal Management
Citation:
Sales
EA,
Afonso
LF and
Pereira
AM
(2019). Asexual brooding in the sea-anemone Actinia schmidti: is temperature a key factor?.
Front. Mar. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
IMMR'18 | International Meeting on Marine Research 2018.
doi: 10.3389/conf.FMARS.2018.06.00058
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Received:
03 Apr 2018;
Published Online:
07 Jan 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Ms. Eliana A Sales, Instituto Universitário de Ciências Psicológicas, Sociais e da Vida, Lisbon, Portugal, eliana.s.sales@gmail.com