Abstract
The upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea xamachana (Scyphozoa: Rhizostomeae) has been predominantly studied to understand its interaction with the endosymbiotic dinoflagellate algae Symbiodinium. As an easily culturable and tractable cnidarian model, it is an attractive alternative to stony corals to understanding the mechanisms driving establishment and maintenance of symbiosis. Cassiopea is also unique in requiring the symbiont in order to complete its transition to the adult stage, thereby providing an excellent model to understand symbiosis-driven development and evolution. Recently, the Cassiopea research system has gained interest beyond symbiosis in fields related to embryology, climate ecology, behavior, and more. With these developments, resources including genomes, transcriptomes, and laboratory protocols are steadily increasing. This review provides an overview of the broad range of interdisciplinary research that has utilized the Cassiopea model and highlights the advantages of using the model for future research.
Introduction
The upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea is a benthic scyphozoan (Rhizostomeae) commonly found in tropical and sub-tropical shallow coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves and seagrass beds. Cassiopea spp. are unique among scyphomedusae in that their characteristic flat exumbrella rests on the sea bottom, while their convex subumbrella and oral arms face upwards. High light penetrance is important for species within this genus, as the jellyfish hosts one or more photosynthetic dinoflagellate species of the genus Symbiodinium (Hofmann et al., 1996; Lampert, 2016). Similar to their coral relatives, nutrient exchange is a key component supporting this cnidarian-dinoflagellate mutualism (Hofmann and Kremer, 1981; Welsh et al., 2009; Freeman et al., 2016). In addition, Cassiopea spp. rely on the symbionts as a developmental trigger (Hofmann et al., 1978; Colley and Trench, ). A fascination with these requisite traits of the upside-down jellyfish has fueled studies on the Cassiopea-Symbiodinium interaction since the 1980s (see recent review by Lampert, 2016). While its efficacy as a system for symbiosis research is well known in the literature, Cassiopea is gaining momentum as a model species in other areas. In mathematics, the symmetric morphology and relatively simple neuromuscular system of the upside-down jellyfish make it an ideal system from which to develop computational fluid dynamic and neuromechanical models (Passano, 2004; Hamlet et al., 2011; Santhanakrishnan et al., 2012). Additionally, Cassiopea has been presented as a possible model organism for the study of behavioral biology as highlighted by recent developments with sleep behavior (Nath et al., 2017; Figure 1). Likewise, this jellyfish genus has been gaining traction as a biomonitor/bioindicator species, with applications for coastal ecosystem management (Templeman and Kingsford, 2012; Epstein et al., 2016; Klein et al., 2016a, 2017). The relative simplicity of culturing Cassiopea polyps and medusae makes this genus a highly amenable laboratory system. With newly established Cassiopea xamachana clonal laboratory lines, and recent advances in affordable genomics tools giving way to draft transcriptome and genome assemblies, the upside-down jellyfish is an appropriate candidate as a model organism. Here, we review Cassiopea research conducted to date and discuss future directions of this highly valuable study system.
Figure 1
Evolution and phylogenetics
The first species of the genus Cassiopea was described from the Caribbean as Medusa frondosa by Pallas (1774), and just one year later a second species from the Red Sea was described as Medusa andromeda (published as a post mortem work; figures published only in Forskål (1776). The generic name Cassiopea was proposed for all jellyfish with foliaceous appendages in 1810 (Péron and Lesueur, 1810). Members of the genus Cassiopea were treated as a family by Tilesius (1831), and the current spelling appeared ~30 years later (Agassiz, ). The species-level relationships of the genus Cassiopea are still unresolved since most of the taxonomic studies are based on overlapping, plastic, and polymorphic features (Table 1; Mayer, 1910; Kramp, 1961). This is confounded by vague species descriptions with species diagnoses that are descriptive rather than comparative, although morphology has been useful in distinguishing some congeneric species, i.e., Cassiopea frondosa. In total, 24 nominal species, and varieties thereof, have been proposed to date (Table 1), but only 10 species are presently considered to be valid based on molecular data (Holland et al., 2004; Arai et al., ; Morandini et al., 2017). These studies show that populations of C. xamachana are potential introduction of Cassiopea andromeda from the Red Sea, thereby grouping the species into a single lineage. These species designations, which are based on kimura 2-parameter pairwise distance, fall within previous estimations for other scyphozoans, ranging from 0.00 to 0.034 for conspecifics, and 0.102–0.234 for congenerics (Holland et al., 2004; Ortman et al., 2010; Gómez Daglio and Dawson, 2017). Analyses with expanded taxon sampling (Bayha et al., ; Kayal et al., 2013, 2017) have placed the monogeneric Cassiopea within the family Cassiopeidae, in an unstable position within the clade Kolpophorae, along with representatives of Mastigiidae, Thysanostomatidae, Versurigidae, and Cepheidae (Figure 2). The Kolpophorae belongs to the order Rhizostomeae, a well-supported clade derived from within the scyphozoan order Semaeostomeae (Bayha et al., ; Kayal et al., 2013).
Table 1
| Species | Size (cm) | Exumbrella shape | Lappets in each paramere | Rhopalia | Mouth arms | Appendages | Type locality | Distribution | Life cycle known | Bioinvasion | GenBank* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C. andromeda (Forskål, 1775) | 10–12 | flat | 1–10 | 12–19 (16) | 4–6 branches | n small, 5 or more large, club shaped vesicles | Red Sea | Western Atlantic, North Pacific, Mediterranean Sea, Indo-Pacific | Yes+ | Yes1 | Yes |
| C. depressa (Haeckel, 1880) | 10–12 | flat | 9 | 16 | 6–8 branches | n small clubs | Madagascar, Mozambique | Madagascar and off coast of Mozambique, E. Africa | No | No | No |
| C. frondosa (Pallas, 1774) | 12–26 | flat | 5 | 12 | bifurcated at their ends with short, pinnate side branches | 30–40 small leaf shaped vesicles | West Indies, Caribbean | West Indies to Florida | No | No | Yes |
| C. maremetens (Gershwin et al., 2010) | 2–20 | broad, shallow, aboral concavity | 4 | 19 | 4–6 with distal bifurcation | 1–2 central, 1 base arm, 1 tip arm | Lake Magellan, Australia | Queensland, Australia | No | No | No |
| C. medusa (Light, 1914) | 26 | flat | 7 | 17 | n branches (3 main distal) | n small/large | Culion Bay, Philippines | Hawaii & Philippines | No | Yes2 | No |
| C. mertensi (Brandt, ) | 10–12 | rounded without a concavity | 8 | 16 | 8–12 main branches | n large clubs | Kosrae Island, Micronesia | Caroline Islands & Hawaii | No | Yes3 | No |
| C. ndrosia (Agassiz and Mayer, ) | 5 | concave | 4 | 18–22 | 6–12 main branches | n small leaf shaped | Suva, Fiji | Australia & Fiji | No | No | No |
| C. ornata (Haeckel, 1880) | 10–12 | flat | 5 | 16 | 9– 12 side branches | n small clubs | Palau, Papua New Guinea | Malay Archipelago | No | No | Yes |
| C. vanderhorsti (Stiasny, 1922) | 17 | flatly rounded, with a low central dome | 3–5 | 14–18 | pinnately dichotomus | n small and few large vesicles | Caracas Bay, Curaçao | Caracas Bay, Curaçao | No | No | No |
| C. xamachana (Bigelow, ) | 15 | concave | 5 | 11–23 (16) | 10–15 alternate branches | large and small ribbon-like filaments | Kingston Harbor, Jamaica | West Indies to Florida | Yes− | No | Yes |
Morphological data on valid Cassiopea species, modified from Morandini et al. (2017).
Figure 2
While the polyp stage and strobilation of C. xamachana, as well as the polyp stage of C. frondosa, were described by Bigelow (Bigelow,
Moving forward, enhanced taxon sampling and character analyses by multi-omics methods on a broad geographical scale will facilitate rigorous testing of phylogenetic hypotheses and assessment of genetic richness related to cryptic species, thereby allowing research on different Cassiopea systems from a comparative evolutionary perspective.
Life history
Cassiopea spp. are gonochoristic brooders, with fixed sex determination, although a case of hermaphroditism has been reported from Hawai'i (Hofmann and Hadfield, 2002). Fertilization has been reported to occur within the gastrovascular cavity of the female (Smith, 1936). The embryos pass from the gastrovascular cavity through the brachial canal out of the secondary mouths, and are subsequently deposited onto the oral disc. Because motile settlement-competent planulae can be found attached to the female's oral disc at any given point, the duration of attachment (i.e., brooding) in the absence of outside disturbance is unknown. Cleavage begins ~1–2 h after the fertilized eggs are visible on the oral disc, and then round, ciliated embryos are present 48 h post-fertilization. By 96 h post-fertilization, elongate ovoid planulae, rotating around the longitudinal axis, swim with clear directionality and are capable of settling and becoming polyps. While a detailed characterization of early embryonic development in Cassiopea is yet to be done, developmental timing appears to be temperature dependent and planula morphology has been well described (Martin and Chia, 1982).
Hox genes are present in C. xamachana (Kuhn et al., 1999; Ferrier and Holland, 2001), and work on other cnidarians suggests these may be involved in patterning the oral-aboral axis. In both the anthozoan Nematostella vectensis and the hydrozoan Clytia hemisphaerica, planula, and polyp stages show differential Hox expression along the oral-aboral axis (Ryan et al., 2007; Chiori et al.,
Bud morphogenesis
Polyps of the genus Cassiopea are capable of producing planuloid buds 3–4 mm in length via evagination from the aboral region of the calyx (Van Leishout and Martin, 1992; Figure 3). Bud formation and detachment can occur at a relatively rapid rate, with buds released as frequently as 2–3 per day. Progenitor ectodermal cells are recruited distally and asymmetrically from the site of bud morphogenesis rather than produced by a mitotically active population of cells (Hofmann and Honegger, 1990; Hofmann and Gottlieb, 1991). Planuloid buds form with their future oral pole most proximal to the body. The most distal part of the bud is the future aboral pole, which after detachment will be the leading pole of the swimming bud and the stalk of the future polyp (Curtis and Cowden,
Figure 3

A Cassiopea xamachana poylp with a planuloid bud developing asexually from the aboral region of the calyx.
Settlement and metamorphosis
Induction of settlement and metamorphosis in cnidarian species, including Cassiopea spp., is contingent on the presence of certain types of bacteria (Hofmann et al., 1978; Neumann, 1979; Leitz, 1997; Vermeij et al., 2009). Both larvae and planuloid buds of Cassiopea spp. settle and metamorphose in response to bacterial biofilm, including Vibrio sp. isolated from an Artemia culture (Hofmann et al., 1978). While the isolated Vibrio sp. showed toxic effects on polyp development, a metabolite (1–10 kDa) that was isolated from the bacteria induced settlement and metamorphosis of Cassiopea planulae (Neumann, 1979). A cholera toxin isolated from Vibrio cholerae was also inductive (Wolk et al., 1985). Collagen digestion by Vibrio alginolyticus also led to the production of inductive fractions, suggesting the involvement of a peptidic cue in polyp development (Hofmann and Brand, 1987). The discovery that certain small molecules and peptides are involved in polyp metamorphosis has led to the design of a synthetic peptide (GPGGPA) with settlement and metamorphosis inductive capacities (Fleck, 1998).
Research efforts attempting to isolate a peptidic cue from Cassiopea's natural substrate, degraded mangrove leaves, resulted in extraction of several bioactive fractions, one of which contained a proline-rich 5.8 kDa peptide capable of inducing settlement and metamorphosis, although the precise amino acid sequence of this peptide or other natural cues have yet to be determined (Fleck and Fitt, 1999; Fleck et al., 1999). While cnidarian species have been shown to settle and metamorphose in response to mono-culture biofilm of multiple bacterial taxa (Tran and Hadfield, 2011), the exact underlying mechanism allowing planulae to react to multiple microbial cues has yet to be fully explored. Variation in induction response to artificial inducers (inorganic ions, phorbolesters, diacylglycerols, tetradecanoyl-phorbol-13 acetate) has been observed between hydrozoan and scyphozoan species (Müller, 1973; Henning et al., 1996; Siefker et al., 2000). The difference in induction response to artificial inducers noted between the moon jellyfish Aurelia aurita and C. xamachana (Fitt et al., 1987; Siefker et al., 2000), for example, are suggestive of potentially differing mechanisms of settlement induction. The evolution of cue specificity and signal transduction mechanisms of cnidarian larvae, and more generally invertebrate larvae, remains a topic requiring further research. The current understanding of Cassiopea species diversity and geographic distribution, coupled with the availability of several lab cultures, offers avenues to conduct comparative studies on the induction response of planulae to both natural and synthetic settlement inducers.
Cassiopea-Symbiodinium symbiosis
In many scyphozoans, the transition from polyp to medusa, known as strobilation, can be triggered by temperature and other exogenous cues (Spangenberg, 1965; Loeb, 1973; Holst, 2012). Strikingly, strobilation in Cassiopea requires colonization by the endosymbiont Symbiodinium spp. (Gohar and Eisawy, 1960; Hofmann et al., 1996). Without colonization, polyps will not undergo strobilation, although a single strobilation event in aposymbiotic polyps has been reported by Rahat and Adar (1980). Cassiopea spp. are monodisc strobilating scyphozoans, producing a single ephyra at each strobilation event. Strobilation generally occurs over several days, with the first few days characterized by a reduction in tentacle length (due to absorption), followed by the development of a disc-like apical structure bearing rhopalia and a medusoid form; shortly following is constriction by the polyp body resulting in release of the ephyra (Ludwig, 1969; Hofmann et al., 1978). Colonization of the polyp by the symbiont (i.e., dinoflagellate), and subsequent strobilation of an ephyra, happens in several discrete stages. The colonization process begins when symbionts enter the polyp through the mouth and are then phagocytosed by the gastroderm (Colley and Trench,
Events leading to successful colonization post-phagocytosis can be identified by the relative position of the algae within the phagocytosing cell (Colley and Trench,
Nutritional requirements
For symbiotic cnidarians, the essential nature of the symbiotic relationship strongly suggests that heterotrophic feeding from the surrounding waters may not provide nutrients sufficient to cover the carbohydrate and lipids needed for medusa metamorphosis, growth, and sexual reproduction. A major gap in our knowledge of algal-cnidarian symbiosis has been the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the biosynthesis and regulation of carbon flow from symbiont to host (Yellowlees et al., 2008; Davy et al.,
Similar to the topic of nutrient translocation, little is known about the plasticity in jellyfish nutrient cycling. Jellyfish planulae are all thought to be born symbiont-free, and then following settlement the sessile polyps acquire resources through ingestion of zooplankton. However, <10% of essential carbon is provided by heterotrophic means during the adult medusa stage, and decreased dependence on heterotrophy as a nitrogen source is seen with increasing medusa size (Kremer, 2005). In some coral species, a shift from photosynthesis to heterotrophy may be triggered by thermal stress; this trophic switching is believed to enhance host survival in the event of bleaching events (Rodrigues and Grottoli, 2007; Anthony et al.,
Behavior
Fluid dynamics
Jellyfish use bell contractions while swimming and changing direction in the water and to generate water currents that facilitate feeding and nutrient exchange. Both fluid dynamics and related biological relevance of these activated currents to Cassiopea medusae have been studied using empirical data and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations (Hamlet et al., 2011; Santhanakrishnan et al., 2012). Although the pulsing behavior is cyclic (one cycle comprising a single bell contraction and expansion with pauses in between), it results in continuous flow along the substrate toward the medusa and continuous upward flow above the medusa. During contraction, vortices develop at the bell margins that are forced through the oral arms, where they are broken up. The frilly structure of the oral arms of Cassiopea ensures thorough mixing of the water over their surface and secondary mouths before it is pushed into an upward jet propulsion (Hamlet et al., 2011). Recently, a well-resolved three-dimensional CFD model of bell contraction in the upside-down jellyfish was developed to better ascertain the flows generated by these medusae (Hamlet et al., 2011; Hamlet and Miller, 2012; Santhanakrishnan et al., 2012). Implementation of these models presents the possibility of further investigations of the effect of jellyfish aggregations on the local fluid and nutrient dynamics of a habitat.
At the ecosystem level, the pulsing behavior of upside-down jellyfish affects nutrient release from the substrate. Cassiopea's pulsing was shown to drive pore-water (interstitial water) up from the underlying sediment into the water column, allowing these derived nutrients to be used by the jellyfish and other reef organisms (Jantzen et al., 2010). This type of bioturbation (the disturbance of sediment by organisms) is an important mechanism that couples the nutrient-rich sediments with the oligotrophic waters in which coral reefs occur. Cassiopea itself also releases organic matter, which is taken up by zooplankton in the water column (Niggl et al., 2010). Furthermore, studies have demonstrated that the presence of upside-down jellyfish can have an effect on local nutrient dynamics, greatly affecting local oxygen concentration and ammonium regeneration rates in space (between sediment patches with or without jellyfish) as well as in time (given the diurnal cycle of the photosynthetic symbionts; Welsh et al., 2009). These findings validate the notion that Cassiopea jellyfish play an important role in benthic-pelagic coupling of nutrient cycles, and some researchers even refer to the upside-down jellyfish as an ecosystem engineer (Jantzen et al., 2010). Further research is necessary to better understand the intricate role that Cassiopea medusae play in coastal ecosystems and nutrient cycling.
Quiescence
Animal behavior is the product of numerous pathways, integrating both internal and external information to generate a global behavior. The internal state of an animal greatly affects its behavior—aroused animals act differently than those that are asleep. There is a debate as to how global brain states, like sleep, arise. It has been hypothesized that either specialized regions control the switch between wakefulness and sleep (a top-down mechanism), or neural networks have an emergent bias toward certain global states regulated by local circuits (a bottom-up mechanism). The fundamental question of the cellular mechanism controlling the sleep state is now approachable through detailed analysis of simple behavioral states.
Quiescence in the bilaterian model nematode Caenorhabditis elegans appears to be an emergent property; as the result of an internal network bias, it provides evidence against top-down regulation of a global brain state (Nichols et al., 2017). Unlike C. elegans, neurons in Cassiopea, and other cnidarians, are organized in non-centralized radially symmetrical nerve nets, and yet there exists deep conservation among cnidarian and bilaterian neural structure and neurotransmitters. Recently, a sleep-like state was identified in Cassiopea, making it the earliest diverging lineage (as a representative of Cnidaria) in which sleep has been observed (Nath et al., 2017). Cassiopea medusae display the three behavioral characteristics that define a sleep state: quiescence that is rapidly reversible, homeostatic regulation upon sleep deprivation, and a delayed response to sensory stimuli, called sensory depression. This recent recognition of a defined sleep-like state in Cassiopea, despite its lack of centralized nervous system, presents a unique opportunity to determine if sleep is, in fact, an emergent property of the earliest nerve networks. As a early diverging metazoan, Cassiopea is an important model for understanding scyphozoan behavior and the underlying evolutionary mechanisms that have arisen to control behavior in derived animal lineages.
Cassiopea in the environment
Bioinvasion and blooms
Molecular phylogenetic analyses demonstrated that some individuals of Cassiopea from the same geographic area fall into different clades, evidencing cryptic species (Arai,
Environmental monitoring and ecotoxicology
As marine systems worldwide continue to decline from local and global physical, chemical, and biological threats (De'ath et al.,
In contrast to biomonitors, bioindicators are defined as organisms that will exhibit a change in structure or function that is linked to the biological effect of a contaminant at the organism, population, community, or ecosystem level (McCarty, 2002; McCarty and Munkittrick, 2008). Bioindicator species are used in laboratory bioassays to establish criteria for ecological sensitivity (e.g., LC50), but there is still a need to identify model organisms for standardization of these assays (Chapman,
Other laboratory applications
Toxinology and cnidome
Despite the ubiquity of cnidarian species in a variety of aquatic environments, toxinological research concerning cnidarian venom has been significantly delayed compared to advances seen in research applications related to venomous terrestrial animals (Turk and Kem, 2009). Early clinical research on cnidarian venom validated a diversity of symptoms presented in human sting victims, including but not limited to anaphylaxis (Togias et al., 1985; Radwan and Burnett, 2001). Studies have also emphasized the potential for cnidarian bioactive proteins in pharmacological applications (Jha and Zi-Rong, 2004). Cassiopea medusae have a mild capacity to sting, and only a few cases of human envenomation have been reported to cause symptoms ranging from a rash, swelling, vomiting, and urticaria (Rifkin and Fenner, 1996). Cnidarian venom is delivered to prey and potential predators via the firing of microscopic nematocysts. In C. andromeda, five different types of nematocysts have been identified: a-isorhizas, O-isorhizas, euryteles, large oval birhopaloids, and small lemon-shaped birhopaloid (Heins et al., 2015). Studies including toxinological inferences have focused on several bioactive properties of crude venom extracts, which include cytolysis and hemolysis (Radwan and Burnett, 2001; Radwan et al., 2001, 2005; Torres et al., 2001). Neurotoxic effects were also identified in two of Cassiopea's nematocyst types (birhopaloid and a-isorhiza) (Gülşahin, 2015). The ease at which Cassiopea can be collected globally in mangroves and cultured in the lab, provides a clear advantage to studying this species' venom, which has antitumor and antiprotozoal properties that may serve as future novel pharmacological and therapeutics agents (Orduña-Novoa et al., 2003; Morales-Landa et al., 2007; Mirshamsi et al., 2017). A recent study showed that Cassiopea crude venom induced apoptosis in human breast cancer tissue via reactive oxygen species (ROS) mediated cytotoxicity (Mirshamsi et al., 2017). Cassiopea, therefore, has potential for future bioactive natural product discovery through modern “venomics” approaches (genome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome) that have applications to elucidating evolutionary mechanisms driving the complexity and diversity of cnidarian venom (Radwan et al., 2001; Casewell et al.,
Cassiopea virology
In comparison to bacterial components of the cnidarian holobiont, studies on the virome have received considerably less attention, but are of interest due to the potentially harmful effects that viruses can have on cnidarian health (Thurber and Correa, 2011; Correa et al.,
CASSIOPEA as a laboratory resource
The ease at which the asexual polyp stage can be propagated in the laboratory using artificial seawater makes Cassiopea an attractive system for sustained culturing. Depending on the frequency of feeding, polyps are capable of developing motile planuloid buds within 24 h (Van Leishout and Martin, 1992). Swimming buds can settle onto a suitable substrate within 24 h and undergo metamorphosis into a polyp. Therefore, the continuous release of planuloid buds permits an aposymbiotic polyp to propagate a perpetual colony of asexual polyps. Currently, twelve C. xamachana lines (originally from Florida) have been established by the Cassiopea consortium. A draft C. xamachana genome has been assembled (ENA Accession: PRJEB23739), as well as transcriptomes of the aposymbiotic, symbiotic, and strobila stages (European Nucleotide Archive Accession: PRJEB21012). Future application of metabolomics approaches in Cassiopea research will also help generate a profile of the underlying metabolic pathways and metabolite dynamics that might be affected by environmental factors during key stages of Cassiopea development and symbiosis.
While aposymbiotic polyps can be propagated as described above, symbiotic polyps can be generated by providing the polyps with Symbiodinium spp. Cassiopea polyps are capable of forming associations with virtually all symbiotic Symbiodinium cultures (Thornhill et al., 2006; Lampert, 2016), making this an ideal system for comparative studies. The colonization characteristics of Cassiopea provide two tractable phenotypes to visually confirm variation in the symbiotic association. Symbiodinium density within the amoebocytes can vary depending on the colonizing species (Winstead et al., 2018), and strobilation timing also appears to vary accordingly (Lampert, 2016). Newly strobilated ephyrae are available for experimentation; likewise the adult medusae can also be acquired with relative ease, through animal transfer with public aquariums and through the recreational aquarium trade. In addition, only simple setups are required to rear each stage, making Cassiopea an easily manageable laboratory animal (Widmer, 2008). Fertilized eggs can be obtained from the brooding female adult medusae, confirmed by the initiation of initial cleavage post-collection (Smith, 1936; Gohar and Eisawy, 1960). Cassiopea are gonochoristic, with females identifiable through the presence of specialized central brood tentacles (Hofmann and Hadfield, 2002). Spawning can likely occur year-around under ideal conditions, and fertilized eggs collected directly from the brood tentacles after spawning (Gohar and Eisawy, 1960; Hummelinck, 1968). The planula larvae stage can also be acquired directly from the brooding female and used for additional experimentation. Tools for working with Cassiopea are increasingly being made available to researchers and educators, with many such protocols available online. In particular, a customized whole mount in situ hybridization protocol has been developed for Cassiopea, along with other molecular tools and resources, which are accessible through the online portal (http://sites.psu.edu/cassbase/). Single cell injection for transgenic approaches is currently under development, with a promising outlook for becoming an important resource for mapping jellyfish molecular pathways.
Conclusions
Cassiopea is a system predominantly studied for the many questions that can be addressed on interdependent organisms given its remarkable Cnidaria-Symbiodinium association. This review demonstrates that in addition to the effectiveness of the Cassiopea system for elucidating the complex processes underlying symbiosis, Cassiopea has potential to contribute substantially to our knowledge of a wide range of research topics within the field of invertebrate biology. The recent acquisition of genomics resources and development of several new molecular tools for Cassiopea sets this cnidarian apart as a model for identifying possible genotypic and phenotypic traits to support the hypothesis of co-evolution between Cassiopea and Symbiodinium. Given Cassiopea's position as a well-established lab organism, the time is right for studies that seek to characterize possible changes in molecular composition (at the gene, metabolite or peptide-level) of one or both symbiotic organisms, phenotypic attributes that may have evolved as a result of this interspecific interaction, or the putative effects of ecological intimacy on each organism's level of adaptation to the shared environment. These questions, and countless others, can be properly interrogated by way of rigorous observations, diverse experimentation, and implementation of phylogenetic analyses in an attempt to infer potential reciprocal evolutionary change.
The Cassiopea system also has obvious applications to the fields of bacterial and viral co-evolution, from the dual perspective of understanding microbial symbiosis between either the cnidarian host or the associated dinoflagellate symbiont. Furthermore, Cassiopea shows promise as an effective bioindicator for our rapidly changing oceans, and as a biomonitor for further investigations of the medusa's potential impact on coastal ecology on a broader geographic scale. The relatively straight-forward culturing protocols and approachability of the system make Cassiopea particularly feasible as a teaching tool, not only at the college level but also from Kindergarten through grade 12. This review is a culmination of many years of multidisciplinary, collaborative research that has helped position the upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea as a valuable resource to researchers in the omics era seeking an effective model system to better understand the natural history and biodiversity of some of the earliest multicellular animals through studies on evolution, co-evolution and beyond.
Statements
Author contributions
AO, MA, DB, LS-B, CF, EG-M, AJ-B, PL, ACMo, LM, LDM, ACMa, CN, SP, JS, SS, BS, MT, PT, MV, CW, JW, and MQM: Provided written text for the sections within the manuscript; CA, AC, DH, TG, WF, and MM: provided expertise and edits to the manuscript.
Acknowledgments
We'd like to thank Todd LaJeunesse, Yixian Zheng, and Chen-Ming Fan for providing comments on the manuscript. Some of the images used in Figure 1 were provided by Todd LaJeunesse and Priyanka Kanti Solanki. Many thanks to Jon Norenburg who, as the chair of Invertebrate Zoology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, supported our endeavors to create the Aquaroom, thereby facilitating many interesting observations of Cassiopea polyps and medusae (some acquired from the National Aquarium) by some coauthors and Aquaroom interns. Financial support was provided from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) projects 2011/50242-5, 2015/21007-9, 2015/24408-4, 2017/50028-0 and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) project 304961/2016-7, 404121/2016-0.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Summary
Keywords
jellyfish, symbiosis, toxinology, sleep, venom, scyphozoan systematics, bioindicator
Citation
Ohdera AH, Abrams MJ, Ames CL, Baker DM, Suescún-Bolívar LP, Collins AG, Freeman CJ, Gamero-Mora E, Goulet TL, Hofmann DK, Jaimes-Becerra A, Long PF, Marques AC, Miller LA, Mydlarz LD, Morandini AC, Newkirk CR, Putri SP, Samson JE, Stampar SN, Steinworth B, Templeman M, Thomé PE, Vlok M, Woodley CM, Wong JCY, Martindale MQ, Fitt WK and Medina M (2018) Upside-Down but Headed in the Right Direction: Review of the Highly Versatile Cassiopea xamachana System. Front. Ecol. Evol. 6:35. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2018.00035
Received
29 January 2018
Accepted
20 March 2018
Published
09 April 2018
Volume
6 - 2018
Edited by
Sandie M. Degnan, The University of Queensland, Australia
Reviewed by
Adam Michael Reitzel, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, United States; Lucas Leclere, UMR7009 Laboratoire de Biologie du Développement de Villefranche sur Mer, France
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Copyright
© 2018 Ohdera, Abrams, Ames, Baker, Suescún-Bolívar, Collins, Freeman, Gamero-Mora, Goulet, Hofmann, Jaimes-Becerra, Long, Marques, Miller, Mydlarz, Morandini, Newkirk, Putri, Samson, Stampar, Steinworth, Templeman, Thomé, Vlok, Woodley, Wong, Martindale, Fitt and Medina.
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*Correspondence: Aki H. Ohdera auo140@psu.eduMónica Medina mum55@psu.edu
This article was submitted to Coevolution, a section of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
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