Carapace ontogeny of the bromeliad dwelling ostracod Elpidium bromeliarum Müller, 1880 (Crustacea: Ostracoda)
| Autor: | Ricardo L. Pinto, Carlos Eduardo Falavigna da Rocha, Julia da Silva Pereira, Dariane Isabel Dorneles Schneider |
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| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Appendage biology Ecology 010604 marine biology & hydrobiology Ontogeny Zoology Biodiversity Indeterminate growth biology.organism_classification 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Crustacean Ostracod Juvenile Carapace Adult stage Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics Taxonomy |
| Popis: | Ostracods have discontinuous development, marked by ecdyses, and determinate growth. Ontogenetic studies have suggested a pattern of nine postembryonic stages (eight juvenile phases and the adult) for the main freshwater ostracod superfamilies Cypridoidea, Cytheroidea and Darwinuloidea. However, cases of a supposed extra moult in the adult stage have been proposed for some ostracod species, which would amount to 10 postembryonic growth stages. One such example is Elpidium bromeliarum Muller, 1880, a cytheroidean that inhabits tank-bromeliads. The present study is aimed at investigating the ontogenetic development of E. bromeliarum using width and length measurements, as well as carapace and appendage morphology in order to test the existing hypothesis of an additional growth stage in adults of this species. Our results revealed nine postembryonic growth stages (eight juvenile and the adult), with sexual dimorphism beginning its expression in the last juvenile stage. Thus, the ontogenetic development of E. bromeliarum agrees with the overall pattern observed for podocopid ostracods and the hypothesis of 10 postembryonic growth stages was not corroborated. We argue that the inability to differentiate juveniles from adults, or different species from one another, may have misled to the assumption of an additional moult in E. bromeliarum . |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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