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Long-term patterns of gill cleaning, ventilation and swimming inLimulus

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Summary

  1. 1.

    The gill appendages ofLimulus are utilized for several different activities, all of which commonly occur in long-term patterns. These patterns consist of bouts of one type of activity alternating with bouts of another, in the following combinations (listed in order of prevalence): ventilation and gill cleaning, swimming and ventilation, swimming and apnea, ventilation and apnea, swimming and gill cleaning.

  2. 2.

    The long-term patterns are fairly stable, although there may be some variability in the duration of bouts within a pattern. These alterations in the bout duration do not appear to influence the length of the succeeding bout.

  3. 3.

    The patterns are susceptible to changes in ambient oxygen concentration.

  4. 4.

    It is suggested that the underlying neural mechanism responsible for generating these long-term patterns consists of bout generators for each fixed action pattern which reciprocally inhibit each other.

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Abbreviations

CNS :

central nervous system

CPG :

central pattern generator

pO 2 :

oxygen partial pressure

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Author notes

  1. Winsor H. Watson III

    Present address: Zoology Department, University of New Hampshire, 03824, Durham, New Hampshire, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, University of Massachusetts, 01003, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA

    Winsor H. Watson III

  2. Marine Biological Laboratory, 02543, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA

    Winsor H. Watson III

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  1. Winsor H. Watson III
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Additional information

This work was supported by PHS Grant NS 08869 to Gordon A. Wyse, a Grass Fellowship in Neurophysiology to Winsor H. Watson III, an allocation from the University of Massachusetts Computer Center, and a CURF grant from the University of New Hampshire. It is based on part of a dissertation submitted by Winsor Watson in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass. I wish to thank Dr. John Roberts, Dr. Margaret Anderson-Olivo and Dr. Gordon A. Wyse for their advice and critical reading of the manuscript, Loise O'Gorman, Hilda Greenbaum, George Drake and Paul Fachada for technical assistance, and Suzanne Lucas, Steve Zottoli and Marv Freadman for their support and encouragement. I am especially grateful to Gordon Wyse for his teaching, expertise, insight, and personal friendship throughout the duration of this study.

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Watson, W.H. Long-term patterns of gill cleaning, ventilation and swimming inLimulus . J. Comp. Physiol. 141, 77–85 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00611880

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