(Press-News.org) Among soft-bodied cephalopods, vampire squid live life at a slower pace. At ocean depths from 500 to 3,000 meters, they don't swim so much as float, and they get by with little oxygen while consuming a low-calorie diet of zooplankton and detritus. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 20 have found that vampire squid differ from all other living coleoid cephalopods in their reproductive strategy as well.
While other squid reproduce all at once late in their lives, vampire squid appear to alternate between reproductive and resting phases. It's a pattern of multiple spawning more common among fish.
Their slow mode of life seems insufficient to support one big reproductive event, unlike other coleoid cephalopods," says Henk-Jan Hoving, who is working for the Cluster of Excellence "Future Ocean" at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in Germany. "Perhaps it is therefore that vampire squid return to a gonadal resting phase after spawning, and presumably start accumulating energy for a new reproductive cycle."
Hoving and his colleagues were led to the discovery quite by accident as they were going through vampire squid collections dating back to the 1960s and 1970s at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. They noticed something unexpected along the way: many of the females had spawned but had no ripe or developing eggs and were in a reproductive resting phase.
The researchers have now characterized the reproductive status of more than 40 vampire squid females. They report that one female in the sample, despite being in a reproductive resting phase, had released at least 3,800 eggs yet still retained 6,500 viable oocytes for future spawning. Assuming an average batch size of 100 eggs, the researchers suggest that this one female had already spawned about 38 times, with eggs in reserve for another 65 or so spawning episodes.
The findings suggest that vampire squid live longer than shallow-water squid species typically do. The discovery is also a reminder of just how much we have to learn about life in the deep sea.
"We know very little about deep-sea organisms and their life-cycle patterns, in particular in the water column of the deep sea," Hoving says. "The patterns we know from coastal and shallow-water organisms may not apply to deep-sea species. We need to enhance our knowledge of deep-sea pelagic organisms and the system they are part [of], since the pelagic deep sea is the largest living space on the planet. A better understanding of this unique marine ecosystem will eventually allow for better development of management and conservation strategies."
INFORMATION:
Current Biology, Hoving et al.: "Vampire squid reproductive strategy is unique among coleoid cephalopods" http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.02.018
Current Biology, published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. For more information please visit http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive media alerts for Current Biology or other Cell Press journals, contact press@cell.com.
Household pets can transmit infection to people, especially those with weak immune systems, young children, pregnant women and seniors, according to an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Health care providers and pet owners should be aware of this risk to prevent illness in vulnerable people.
Surveys suggest that the general public and people at high risk for pet-associated disease are not aware of the risks associated with high-risk pet practices or recommendations to reduce them; for example, 77% of households that obtained a new pet following a ...
La Jolla, Calif., April 20, 2015 - A new research study has shown that pancreatic cancer cells can be coaxed to revert back toward normal cells by introducing a protein called E47. E47 binds to specific DNA sequences and controls genes involved in growth and differentiation. The research provides hope for a new treatment approach for the more than 40,000 people who die from the disease each year in the United States.
"For the first time, we have shown that overexpression of a single gene can reduce the tumor-promoting potential of pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells and reprogram ...
COLUMBUS, Ohio--As new medical diagnostics become available, researchers are increasingly discovering situations in which pets can transmit diseases to humans--especially when an owner's immune system is compromised.
At The Ohio State University and partner institutions, researchers have compiled the latest information from more than 500 studies worldwide to make recommendations on how families can minimize the risk of disease transmission by choosing the right type of pet, or by making small changes in how they enjoy the pets they already have.
The review was published ...
A new diagnostic method, namely spectral histopathology, facilitates marker-free detection of individual subtypes of lung cancers. It was developed by researchers at the PURE consortium at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB). They have successfully applied it in collaboration with clinicians at the Ruhrlandklinik in Essen. It is an automatable imaging process which, by classifying specific forms of lung cancer, facilitates a prognosis regarding a tumour's aggressiveness. The team, headed by RUB Prof Dr Klaus Gerwert, compares the results of traditional diagnostic procedures ...
CLEMSON, S.C. -- In a groundbreaking achievement led by an international team that includes Clemson scientist Chris Saski, the intricately woven genetic makeup of Upland cotton has been decoded for the first time in the ancient plant's history.
Saski participated in sequencing the genome, which is a crucial stepping-stone toward further advancements of understanding the inner workings of one of the most complex and treasured plants on the planet.
The future implications of Saski's research in the short and long terms are both financial and holistic. Upland cotton, which ...
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Researchers at Oregon State University have invented a new technology that can increase the bandwidth of WiFi systems by 10 times, using LED lights to transmit information.
The technology could be integrated with existing WiFi systems to reduce bandwidth problems in crowded locations, such as airport terminals or coffee shops, and in homes where several people have multiple WiFi devices.
Experts say that recent advances in LED technology have made it possible to modulate the LED light more rapidly, opening the possibility of using light for wireless ...
NEW YORK (April 20, 2015) -- Genomic studies have illuminated the ways in which malfunctioning genes can drive cancer growth while stunting the therapeutic effects of chemotherapy and other treatments. But new findings from Weill Cornell Medical College investigators indicate that these genes are only partly to blame for why treatment that was at one point effective ultimately fails for about 40 percent of patients diagnosed with the most common form of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.
The study, published April 20 in Nature Communications, suggests that global changes in cancer ...
A rigorous analysis of antimalarial drug quality conducted in Cambodia and Tanzania found no evidence of fake medicines, according to new research published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
But researchers warn that routine surveillance is crucial as poor quality medicines exist, leaving malaria patients at risk of dying and increasing the risk of drug resistance.
Previous reports had suggested that up to one third of antimalarials could be fake. Researchers from the Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) Consortium at the London School ...
Dispensing of prescription opioid pain relievers and prescription opioid overdoses both dropped substantially after abuse-deterrent extended-release oxycodone hydrochloride was introduced on the pharmaceutical market and the narcotic drug propoxyphene was withdrawn from the U.S. market in 2010, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.
The abuse-deterrent OxyContin formulation is resistant to crushing and dissolving, actions that have been used to bypass the extended-release mechanism to get a quicker and more intense high. Propoxyphene (also ...
Children whose families and pediatricians were most faithful to an obesity intervention program that included computerized clinical decision support for physicians and health coaching for families experienced the greatest improvements in body mass index (BMI), according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.
The prevalence of childhood obesity in the United States remains at historically high levels. Clinical approaches that are cost-effective and scalable for obesity reduction in children are a public health priority. However, interventions to improve BMI ...
