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Changes in podial skeletons during growth in the echinoid Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus

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Abstract

A feature of the Echinodermata is the presence of a water vascular system; the tube feet, or podia, are the terminal structure of this system and are an organ used for movement, attachment to a substrate, and feeding. The tube foot possesses calcite skeletons in the sucker (the disk skeleton consisting of rosettes and frames) and basal connective tissue (ossicles); however, details of the skeletal elements have not yet been studied in detail. We analyzed the relationship between morphology and the amount of skeleton in the tube feet and other regions by investigating growth in the echinoid Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus (family Strongylocentrotidae). The tube foot disk skeleton consisted of three or four three skeletal elements in a rosette with some distal projections. Approximately 98% of tube feet ossicles showed a ‘C’ shape, while the remainder exhibited an ‘S’, ‘bow’ or ‘triradiate’ shape (n = 24 sea urchins). The tube feet in the oral region possessed bigger distal skeletons and approximately twice the number of ossicles than those of the lateral and aboral regions. With growth, the diameter of the distal skeleton increased to four skeletal elements in a rosette. The number of ossicles in the tube feet increased significantly with a test diameter up to 20–30 mm, and thereafter decreased, but beyond a test diameter of 35 mm the number of ossicles again increased. These results suggest that test growth may cause the observed fluctuation in the number of tube feet ossicles, and that sea urchins accumulate calcium carbonate in the tube feet skeleton as the test grows.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Drs. David McClay and Shonan Amemiya for gift of Ig8, Dr. M. Watanabe for presenting experimental tools and students in our laboratories for suggestion and collecting organisms. We also thank the department of fishery in Yamaguchi Prefecture and Yamaguchi Fisheries Cooperative Association for permission to collect sea urchins. This work was supported in part by Marine Invertebrates Research Institute Foundation to C. K.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biological Institute, Faculty of Education, Yamaguchi University, Yamaguchi, 753-8513, Japan

    Shinichiro Kawasaki & Chisato Kitazawa

  2. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Yamaguchi University, Yoshida 1677-1, Yamaguchi, 753-8512, Japan

    Akira Yamanaka

  3. Department of Biology, Graduate School of Science and Technology for Innovation, Yamaguchi University, Yoshida 1677-1, Yamaguchi, 753-8512, Japan

    Akira Yamanaka

  4. Social System Analysis, The Graduate School of East Asian Studies, Yamaguchi University, Yoshida 1677-1, Yamaguchi, 753-8514, Japan

    Chisato Kitazawa

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  1. Shinichiro Kawasaki
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Contributions

S.K. and C.K. wrote the main manuscript text and prepared all figures and tables. A.Y. and S.K. experimented immunological works. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chisato Kitazawa.

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435_2022_585_MOESM4_ESM.tif

Supplementary Fig. S1 Changes in the diameter of the tube foot disk skeleton during test growth in Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus. The graphs show the diameter of disk skeletons in tube feet collected from the oral (a), inner oral (b), outer oral (c), lateral (d), and aboral (e) regions. The x-axis and y-axis respectively, show the test diameter and the mean diameter of sucker skeletons of tube feet in specimens grouped by 5-mm size intervals (test diameter), based on data used for Fig. 3. (TIF 79 KB)

435_2022_585_MOESM5_ESM.tif

Supplementary Fig. S2 Changes in the number of tube foot ossicles and the weight and size of the test skeleton during growth in Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus. Graphs (a–e) show the average number of tube foot ossicles collected from the oral (a), inner oral (b), outer oral (c), lateral (d), and aboral (e) regions in relation to test growth. The x-axis and y-axis, respectively, show the test diameter and the mean number of tube foot ossicles in specimens grouped by 5-mm size intervals (test diameter), based on data used for Supplementary Fig. S1. Graph (f) shows changes in the weight of the test skeleton during growth. The dashed line represents the approximate curve. (TIF 84 KB)

435_2022_585_MOESM6_ESM.tif

Supplementary Fig. S3 X-Y scatter between the mean weight of the test skeleton and the mean number of tube foot ossicles (based on the table below). The data of test weight are independent from specimen A–X and the data of mean number of tube foot ossicles are based on the total of Supplementary Table 2. The gray dot line shows the approximate straight line. (TIF 58 KB)

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Kawasaki, S., Yamanaka, A. & Kitazawa, C. Changes in podial skeletons during growth in the echinoid Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus. Zoomorphology 142, 63–75 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00435-022-00585-1

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