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Evolution of the claustrum in Cnidaria: comparative anatomy reveals that it is exclusive to some species of Staurozoa and absent in Cubozoa

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Abstract

The claustrum in Cnidaria is a tissue in the gastrovascular cavity delimited by a central layer of mesoglea surrounded by gastrodermis (i.e., gastrodermis-mesoglea-gastrodermis), without communication with epidermis. By dividing the gastrovascular cavity, the four claustra provide an additional level of complexity. The presence of claustra in Cubozoa and Staurozoa has been used as evidence supporting a close relationship between these two cnidarian classes. However, the detailed anatomy of the claustrum has never been comparatively analyzed, rendering the evolution of this character among Cnidaria and its homology in Staurozoa and Cubozoa uncertain. This study provides a comparative investigation of the internal anatomy of the claustrum in Staurozoa and Cubozoa, addressing its evolutionary history based on recent phylogenetic hypotheses for Cnidaria. We conclude that the claustrum is a character exclusive to some species of Staurozoa, with a homoplastic evolution in the class, and that the structure called the “claustrum” in Cubozoa corresponds to the valve of gastric ostium, a structure at the base of the manubrium, which is also present in Staurozoa with and without claustrum. Thus, the claustrum cannot be a synapomorphy of a hypothetical clade uniting Staurozoa and Cubozoa, nor can its hypothetical presence in enigmatic fossils be used to support cubozoan affinities.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Enio Mattos (IB-USP) and José Eduardo A. R. Marian (IB-USP) for their kind assistance with the histological procedures. We are also grateful to the editor Andreas Wanninger and to an anonymous reviewer whose comments helped improve the quality of the manuscript. This contribution involved the participation of scientists of NP-BioMar.

Funding

This study was supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) 2010/07362-7 (LSM), 2015/23695-0 (LSM), 2010/50174-7 (ACMo), 2015/21007-9 (ACMo), 2011/50242-5 (ACMa), 2013/50484-4 (ACMa); Comissão de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) PDSE 16499/12-3 (LSM), PNPD (LSM); and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) 142270/2010-5 (LSM), 301039/2013-5 (ACMo), 304961/2016-7 (ACMo), 474672/2007-7 (ACMa), 562143/2010-6 (ACMa), 305805/2013-4 (ACMa), 445444/2014-2 (ACMa).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Matão, travessa 14, 101, Cidade Universitária, São Paulo, São Paulo, 05508-090, Brazil

    Lucília S. Miranda, Jimena García-Rodríguez, André C. Morandini & Antonio C. Marques

  2. National Systematics Laboratory, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA

    Allen G. Collins

  3. Centro de Biologia Marinha, Universidade de São Paulo, São Sebastião, São Paulo, Brazil

    Antonio C. Marques

Authors
  1. Lucília S. Miranda
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  2. Jimena García-Rodríguez
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  3. Allen G. Collins
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  4. André C. Morandini
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  5. Antonio C. Marques
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Correspondence to Lucília S. Miranda.

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Miranda, L.S., García-Rodríguez, J., Collins, A.G. et al. Evolution of the claustrum in Cnidaria: comparative anatomy reveals that it is exclusive to some species of Staurozoa and absent in Cubozoa. Org Divers Evol 17, 753–766 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-017-0342-6

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