A characteristic
of ctenophores is that they have the longest cilia and rely more heavily on these ancient organelles than any other animal.
However, its official title is «Understanding the biodiversity and ecological importance
of ctenophores — Lessons from Arctic and Baltic Mertensia ovum.»
«We know far too little
of the ctenophore and other animals of the gelatinous zooplankton, such as medusae.
Not exact matches
Confirmation
of this latter hypothesis would have far - reaching implications for our understanding
of evolutionary history because comb jellies and their relatives are relatively complex animals — unlike sponges and placozoans,
ctenophores possess muscles and a nervous system.
«If
ctenophores diverged first, these organ systems likely have been present in the common ancestor
of all animals — and sponges and placozoans must subsequently have lost them — or complex traits like nerve cells and muscles must have emerged independently several times in different lineages,» Wörheide explains.
The main natural enemy
of Mnemiopsis is another comb jelly Beroe
ctenophore, also an alien in the Adriatic, and there is some hope that one alien may now feed off another, more devastating one.
One
of the conclusions
of Majaneva's dissertation is that the most reliable method for identifying
ctenophores is to combine photos
of individual specimens with morphological and molecular identification methods.
In its Arctic home waters, the Arctic
ctenophore reaches a size
of nearly 10 centimetres.
Now, the robot's first findings are already helping scientists piece together more
of this previously hidden under - ice food web, including more evidence
of the under - ice algae, as well as tiny copepods,
ctenophores (jellyfish), predatory marine worms called arrow worms, and abundant amounts
of large floating slime balls, known to scientists as larvaceans.
In her PhD thesis, which she is due to defend on 11 April, researcher Sanna Majaneva has studied the life
of the Arctic
ctenophore Mertensia ovum, or the Arctic comb jelly, which is found in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic.
The Arctic
ctenophore is rather common from the southern Baltic Sea to the Gulf
of Finland and the Sea
of Bothnia.
The role
of the Arctic
ctenophore in the Arctic and Baltic ecosystems has not been fully understood due to the limited availability
of precise frequency and research data.
These include Western Australia's first members
of the marine mite family, its first species
of a wormlike mollusk called aplacophoran, and an unusual species
of benthic
ctenophore, a bottom - dwelling comb jelly.
Several unprecedented videos
of gelatinous sea creatures called comb jellies, or
ctenophores, now threaten to upend the standard view
of the evolution
of the so - called through - gut.
Ctenophores were the last remaining group
of primitive animals to have a genome sequenced, so the research allowed the first genetic comparison
of all groups.
Common types
of gelata include jellyfish, medusa, and
ctenophores.