Meeting Abstract
The starlet sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis, has emerged as the model sea anemone for its fully sequenced genome, astounding regenerative properties, and speedy reproduction. The sea anemone’s tentacles are covered in hair bundles, which are mechanoreceptors. Anemone’s mechanoreceptors are used in the detection and capture of swimming prey. This study addressed whether or not hair bundle mechanoreceptors are used in the detection and capture of benthic, or crawling, prey. Nematostella vectensis’ body column is submerged with tentacles exposed at the sediment layer. Therefore, this animal would likely benefit from capturing prey along the sediment layer. Experiments were conducted using the annelid worm Tubifex tubifex as benthic prey for individual anemones in petri dishes. Assaying the amount of time required to both capture and ingest the worms, while mechanoreceptors were both functional and inhibited by Streptomycin, showed that the mean time to capture benthic prey in the presence of mechanoreceptor inhibition significantly increased. Ingestion time, however, was unaffected. These results suggest that hair bundle mechanoreceptors on anemone tentacles are employed in the detection and capture of benthic prey. In order to study the viability of benthic prey versus swimming prey in a more natural habitat, ongoing experiments test prey capture by anemones in dishes containing sand in which they are partially buried. In order to test if the diffusible chemicals required to stimulate hair bundle elongation, which facilitate prey capture in the sea anemone, are also present in the worms, ongoing experiments involve measuring hair bundle lengths after exposure to worm-inhabited seawater compared to control seawater.
