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Current Biology : CB Jul 2018Compared to other arthropods, such as crustaceans or insects, the term 'chelicerate' often does not evoke a similar sense of recognition or familiarity. Yet the...
Compared to other arthropods, such as crustaceans or insects, the term 'chelicerate' often does not evoke a similar sense of recognition or familiarity. Yet the subphylum Chelicerata has been encountered by every living person today, frequently to the effect of fear, awe, or outright revulsion. Chelicerates include such familiar groups as spiders, scorpions, mites, and ticks, as well as an array of bizarre and unfamiliar forms, such as vinegaroons, camel spiders, and hooded tick spiders (Figure 1).
Topics: Animals; Arthropods; Behavior, Animal; Biodiversity; Life History Traits; Phylogeny
PubMed: 30040933
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.05.036 -
Learning & Behavior Sep 2020Effective communication is essential in animal life to allow fundamental behavioral processes and survival. Communicating by surface-borne vibrations is likely the most... (Review)
Review
Effective communication is essential in animal life to allow fundamental behavioral processes and survival. Communicating by surface-borne vibrations is likely the most ancient mode of getting and exchanging information in both invertebrates and vertebrates. In this review, we concentrate on the use of vibrational communication in arthropods as a form of intraspecific and interspecific signaling, with a focus on the newest discoveries from our research group in terrestrial isopods (Crustacea: Isopoda: Oniscidea), a taxon never investigated before in this context. After getting little attention in the past, biotremology is now an emerging field of study in animal communication, and it is receiving increased interest from the scientific community dealing with these behavioral processes. In what follows, we illustrate the general principles and mechanisms on which biotremology is based, using definitions, examples, and insights from the literature in arthropods. Vibrational communication in arthropods has mainly been studied in insects and arachnids. For these taxa, much evidence of its use as a source of information from the surrounding environment exists, as well as its involvement in many behavioral roles, such as courtship and mating, conspecific recognition, competition, foraging, parental care, and danger perception. Recently, and for the first time, communication through surface-borne waves has been studied in terrestrial isopods, using a common Mediterranean species of the Armadillidae family as a pilot species, Armadillo officinalis Duméril, 1816. Mainly, for this species, we describe typical behavioral processes, such as turn alternation, aggregation, and stridulation, where vibrational communication appears to be involved.
Topics: Animal Communication; Animals; Arthropods; Insecta; Isopoda; Vibration
PubMed: 32632754
DOI: 10.3758/s13420-020-00428-3 -
Journal of Comparative Physiology. A,... Mar 2023Representatives of arthropods, the largest animal phylum, occupy terrestrial, aquatic, arboreal, and subterranean niches. Their evolutionary success depends on specific...
Representatives of arthropods, the largest animal phylum, occupy terrestrial, aquatic, arboreal, and subterranean niches. Their evolutionary success depends on specific morphological and biomechanical adaptations related to their materials and structures. Biologists and engineers have become increasingly interested in exploring these natural solutions to understand relationships between structures, materials, and their functions in living organisms. The aim of this special issue is to present the state-of-the-art research in this interdisciplinary field using modern methodology, such as imaging techniques, mechanical testing, movement capture, and numerical modeling. It contains nine original research reports covering diverse topics, including flight, locomotion, and attachment of the arthropods. The research achievements are essential not only to understand ecological adaptations, and evolutionary and behavioral traits, but also to drive prominent advances for engineering from exploitation of numerous biomimetic ideas.
Topics: Animals; Arthropods; Biomechanical Phenomena; Locomotion; Biological Evolution; Acclimatization
PubMed: 36813948
DOI: 10.1007/s00359-023-01621-1 -
Animal Cognition Nov 2020The feats of arthropods, and of the well-studied insects and crustaceans in particular, have fascinated scientists and laymen alike for centuries. Arthropods show a... (Review)
Review
The feats of arthropods, and of the well-studied insects and crustaceans in particular, have fascinated scientists and laymen alike for centuries. Arthropods show a diverse repertoire of cognitive feats, of often unexpected sophistication. Despite their smaller brains and resulting lower neuronal capacity, the cognitive abilities of arthropods are comparable to, or may even exceed, those of vertebrates, depending on the species compared. Miniature brains often provide parsimonious but smart solutions for complex behaviours or ecologically relevant problems. This makes arthropods inspiring subjects for basic research, bionics, and robotics. Investigations of arthropod spatial cognition have originally concentrated on the honeybee, an animal domesticated for several thousand years. Bees are easy to keep and handle, making this species amenable to experimental study. However, there are an estimated 5-10 million arthropod species worldwide, with a broad diversity of lifestyles, ecology, and cognitive abilities. This high diversity provides ample opportunity for comparative analyses. Comparative study, rather than focusing on single model species, is well suited to scrutinise the link between ecological niche, lifestyle, and cognitive competence. It also allows the discovery of general concepts that are transferable between distantly related groups of organisms. With species diversity and a comparative approach in mind, this special issue compiles four review articles and ten original research reports from a spectrum of arthropod species. These contributions range from the well-studied hymenopterans, and ants in particular, to chelicerates and crustaceans. They thus present a broad spectrum of glimpses into current research on arthropod spatial cognition, and together they cogently emphasise the merits of research into arthropod cognitive achievements.
Topics: Animals; Arthropods; Cognition; Ecology; Ecosystem; Insecta
PubMed: 33170438
DOI: 10.1007/s10071-020-01446-4 -
Current Biology : CB Jul 2018Ortega-Hernández et al. introduce fuxianhuiids, Cambrian arthropods that are important for our understaindg how the largest animal phylum evolved.
Ortega-Hernández et al. introduce fuxianhuiids, Cambrian arthropods that are important for our understaindg how the largest animal phylum evolved.
Topics: Animals; Arthropods; Biological Evolution; China; Fossils; Life History Traits; Phylogeny
PubMed: 29990450
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.04.042 -
Current Biology : CB Oct 2015
Topics: Animals; Arthropods; Biological Evolution; Fossils; Invertebrates; Phylogeny
PubMed: 26439350
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.07.028 -
Trends in Parasitology Oct 2020Metabolism influences biochemical networks, and arthropod vectors are endowed with an immune system that affects microbial acquisition, persistence, and transmission to... (Review)
Review
Metabolism influences biochemical networks, and arthropod vectors are endowed with an immune system that affects microbial acquisition, persistence, and transmission to humans and other animals. Here, we aim to persuade the scientific community to expand their interests in immunometabolism beyond mammalian hosts and towards arthropod vectors. Immunometabolism investigates the interplay of metabolism and immunology. We provide a conceptual framework for investigators from diverse disciplines and indicate that relationships between microbes, mammalian hosts and their hematophagous arthropods may result in cost-effective (mutualism) or energetically expensive (parasitism) interactions. We argue that disparate resource allocations between species may partially explain why some microbes act as pathogens when infecting humans and behave as mutualistic or commensal organisms when colonizing arthropod vectors.
Topics: Animals; Arthropod Vectors; Arthropods; Species Specificity
PubMed: 32819827
DOI: 10.1016/j.pt.2020.07.010 -
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal... Jul 2016Understanding animal terrestrialization, the process through which animals colonized the land, is crucial to clarify extant biodiversity and biological adaptation.... (Review)
Review
Understanding animal terrestrialization, the process through which animals colonized the land, is crucial to clarify extant biodiversity and biological adaptation. Arthropoda (insects, spiders, centipedes and their allies) represent the largest majority of terrestrial biodiversity. Here we implemented a molecular palaeobiological approach, merging molecular and fossil evidence, to elucidate the deepest history of the terrestrial arthropods. We focused on the three independent, Palaeozoic arthropod terrestrialization events (those of Myriapoda, Hexapoda and Arachnida) and showed that a marine route to the colonization of land is the most likely scenario. Molecular clock analyses confirmed an origin for the three terrestrial lineages bracketed between the Cambrian and the Silurian. While molecular divergence times for Arachnida are consistent with the fossil record, Myriapoda are inferred to have colonized land earlier, substantially predating trace or body fossil evidence. An estimated origin of myriapods by the Early Cambrian precedes the appearance of embryophytes and perhaps even terrestrial fungi, raising the possibility that terrestrialization had independent origins in crown-group myriapod lineages, consistent with morphological arguments for convergence in tracheal systems.This article is part of the themed issue 'Dating species divergences using rocks and clocks'.
Topics: Animals; Arthropods; Biological Evolution; Ecosystem; Evolution, Molecular; Fossils; Phylogeny
PubMed: 27325830
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0133 -
Journal of Molecular Evolution Feb 2022DNA methylation is a crucial, abundant mechanism of gene regulation in vertebrates. It is less prevalent in many other metazoan organisms and completely absent in some...
DNA methylation is a crucial, abundant mechanism of gene regulation in vertebrates. It is less prevalent in many other metazoan organisms and completely absent in some key model species, such as Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans. We report here a comprehensive study of the presence and absence of DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) in 138 Ecdysozoa, covering Arthropoda, Nematoda, Priapulida, Onychophora, and Tardigrada. Three of these phyla have not been investigated for the presence of DNA methylation before. We observe that the loss of individual DNMTs independently occurred multiple times across ecdysozoan phyla. We computationally predict the presence of DNA methylation based on CpG rates in coding sequences using an implementation of Gaussian Mixture Modeling, MethMod. Integrating both analysis we predict two previously unknown losses of DNA methylation in Ecdysozoa, one within Chelicerata (Mesostigmata) and one in Tardigrada. In the early-branching Ecdysozoa Priapulus caudatus, we predict the presence of a full set of DNMTs and the presence of DNA methylation. We are therefore showing a very diverse and independent evolution of DNA methylation in different ecdysozoan phyla spanning a phylogenetic range of more than 700 million years.
Topics: Animals; Arthropods; Caenorhabditis elegans; DNA Methylation; Drosophila melanogaster; Nematoda; Phylogeny; Tardigrada
PubMed: 35089376
DOI: 10.1007/s00239-021-10042-0 -
Current Biology : CB Jun 2019Arthropods are the most diverse animal phylum, and their phylogenetic relationships have been debated for centuries. With the advent of molecular phylogenetics,... (Review)
Review
Arthropods are the most diverse animal phylum, and their phylogenetic relationships have been debated for centuries. With the advent of molecular phylogenetics, arthropods were found to be monophyletic and placed within a clade of molting animals, the ecdysozoans, with nematodes and six other phyla. Molecular phylogenetics also provided a new framework for relationships between the major arthropod groups, such as the clade Pancrustacea, which comprises insects and crustaceans. Phylogenomics based on second-generation genomics and transcriptomics has further resolved puzzles such as the exact position of myriapods or the closest crustacean relatives of hexapods. It is now broadly recognized that extant arthropods are split into chelicerates and mandibulates, and relationships within the two mandibulate clades (myriapods and pancrustaceans) are stabilizing. Notably, the phylogeny of insects is now understood with considerable confidence, whereas relationships among chelicerate orders remain poorly resolved. The evolutionary history of arthropods is illuminated by a rich record of fossils, often with exquisite preservation, but current analyses conflict over whether certain fossil groups are stem- or crown-group arthropods. Molecular time-trees calibrated with fossils estimate the origins of arthropods to be in the Ediacaran, while most other deep nodes date to the Cambrian. The earliest stem-group arthropods were lobopodians, worm-like animals with annulated appendages. Confidently placing some key extinct clades on the arthropod tree of life may require less ambiguous interpretation of fossil structures and better integration of morphological data into the phylogeny.
Topics: Animals; Arthropods; Biological Evolution; Fossils; Genome; Phylogeny
PubMed: 31211983
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.04.057