Meeting Abstract
47.3 Tuesday, Jan. 5 Mid-intertidal movement: variation among and within clones of Anthopleura elegantissima D’ORAZIO, Anthony E.*; DALY, Marymegan; Ohio State University; Ohio State University dorazio.8@osu.edu
The intertidal sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima has garnered attention for its agonistic behavioral response to conspecific non-clonemates and its division of labor between polyps specializing in either agonistic encounters (“warriors”) or sexual reproduction (“reproductives”). The behavior and resource allocation strategy is inferred to be a response to the constraints of space limitation in the intertidal zone. If this is the case, then movement or expansion by a clone through movement of its constituent polyps should be important to clone success. Because of A. elegantissima’s natural history we make two primary hypotheses regarding movement: 1.) Different clones move differently; 2.) propensity for movement differs among members of a clone in a predictable way, related to their role within the clone. We used two experimental situations to explore these hypotheses. In our first experiment, polyps were given the opportunity to move toward clonemates or non-clonemates. There were strong differences in frequency of movement between clones and between warrior-type polyps and reproductive polyps, with the former types moving more often; this result lends support to both hypotheses. Some of the largest differences in movement were between clones that occurred adjacent to one another in nature. We also found that polyps moved in the direction of the clonemate more often than predicted by chance. In our second experiment, we placed groups of clonemates alone or with polyps from another clone and monitored average distance between clonemates over a more extended period (7-23 days) as a proxy for movement. We found added support for differences in movement between clones. These results may help explain how neighboring clones maintain a relatively stable interclonal boundary despite unequal fighting abilities.
