The analysis of biological form must emphasize the concept of adaptation—the fitness of a structure to perform functions beneficial to an organism. Gould (1971).
Abstract
Most species of Keratella possess dome-shaped, dorsal plates comprising a network of polyhedral units (facets), delineated by slightly raised ridges. The arrangement of facets define a species’ facet pattern (FP), with the resulting structure resembling a geodesic dome. Researchers have sorted species into categories based on their FPs, but those have not been analyzed. Additionally, while a strong lorica has been suggested to protect Keratella from predatory attack or other actions causing blunt force trauma (BFT), we know little of how that occurs. Thus, in our study we tested two hypotheses. (1) There is support for categorizing Keratella species into unique groupings based on their FPs. (2) FPs provide resistance to physical stresses. To test that hypothesis we used the structural analysis software SkyCiv©. Our results indicate support for four FP categories. Additionally, the SkyCiv analysis provided preliminary ‘proof-of-concept’ that Keratella FPs have a functional significance: i.e., adding or subtracting facets in our model was followed by a change in predicted structural reliability. We posit that FPs are adaptations protecting Keratella from fractures to the lorica that may result from BFT incurred during predatory attack by copepods or while caught within the branchial chambers of daphnids.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Ripon College librarians, especially Karlyn Schumacher, and also Dr. S. Nandini (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) for their help in securing some of the more obscure works cited in this paper. We thank Drs. Diego Fontaneto, John J. Gilbert, Barbara E. Sisson, and Hilary A. Uyhelji, an anonymous reviewer, and the editors of Hydrobiologia who made helpful suggestions to improve the manuscript. We also thank Drs. Ulrike Obertegger and S.S.S. Sarma who challenged us to think of alternate explanations for the functionality of FPs in Keratella. Finally, we thank Natalie Davies and Alexandre Lafleur who reviewed the dataset for completeness and Patrick Brown for his comments on our statistical analysis. Nevertheless, the authors remain responsible for the accuracy of the analyses. This project was funded in part by several agencies: the National Science Foundation, DEB 2051684 (RH), DEB 2051704 (EJW), and DEB 1257116 and DEB 2051710 (RLW); and the Ripon College SOAR program (RLW).
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Kusztyb, S., Januszkiewicz, W., Walsh, E.J. et al. Does “form follow function” in the rotiferan genus Keratella?. Hydrobiologia 851, 3079–3096 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-023-05192-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-023-05192-9