Abstract
Holothuroids of family Cucumariidae are known to brood their young, and several species from Southern Oceans present different brooding mechanisms, indicating the heterogeneity of this family in this regard. Since few reports analyze the brooding in this family, we studied the reproduction and development of brooders, in the cucumariid Cladodactyla crocea (Lesson, 1830), based on samples taken on several cruises between 38° and 55° up to 1738 m depth, from September 2009 to October 2016. Brooder specimens develop a dorsal marsupium where uncleaved eggs of about 0.94 mm are released in the fall and brooded, until juveniles are released in the following spring. Unreleased eggs of about 0.93 mm were also found in the fall, in the gonads. In addition, in the spring samples, we found ten specimens with 15 cleaved eggs of about 1.1 mm and 34 specimens with 2–35 brooded juveniles, in adults of 14.0–20.0 mm of length. Several adults had up to three different developmental stages at the same time: young pentactula (about 1.6 mm), pentactula (about 1.8 mm), and early juveniles (about 2.2 mm). The external brooding behavior of C. crocea is consistent with the observations made for other species of Cucumariidae in South America and Antarctica. Brooding is a common feature in species of Cucumariidae from the Southern Hemisphere. External brooding is common in South America and Antarctica specimens, while internal brooding has multiple examples in Australia and New Zealand. These different brooding strategies are discussed after the observations made in C. crocea.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to the colleagues on board the B/O Puerto Deseado during different cruises along the Argentine coast; especially Carlos Sánchez Antelo, Juan José Berecoechea, Pamela Rivadeneira, Jonathan Flores, and Martín Brogger. We thank Fabian Tricarico for the assistance with the SEM. Also we would like to thank John Lawrence, Mike Reich, Dieter Piepenburg, and three anonymous reviewers, for valuable suggestions and commentaries that improved this manuscript. This work was partially founded by PICT 2013-2504, PICT 2015-0428, and PICT 2016-0271 from the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica.
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Martinez, M.I., Alba-Posse, E.J., Lauretta, D. et al. Developmental stages in the brooding sea cucumber Cladodactyla crocea (Lesson, 1830) in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean. Polar Biol 41, 1237–1244 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-018-2280-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-018-2280-y