Die Embryonalentwicklung der Paradiesschnecke ... - TOBIAS-lib

Kapitel 1
ietis as it was shown for other gastropod species in earlier studies of Hickman
and Hadfield (2001) and Page (2002) who provided evidence for this view. As
shown for other organisms (for an overview see Wanninger et al., 2000), our
results provide additional independent evidence that several processes are involved
in the ontogenetic process of torsion, in contrast to Garstang (1929)
and Crofts (1937, 1955) who proclaimed contraction of asymetric larval retractor
mussels to be the cause of developmental rotation. We could show
that at least two of the processes associated with torsion can be uncoupled
during the development of M. cornuarietis. That is, the anus of the treated
snails is located anteriorly, but the mantle tissue and gill remains in a posterior
location. Hence, the process of torsion is neither inevitably connected
to mantle cavity formation nor to the translocation of its aperture together
with the gill into a frontal position but rather developmentally separated
from the distal outgrowth of the mantle epithelium, which is also the prerequisite
for an external shell. Both freshwater model species, M. cornuarietis
and P. corneus, go through a “direct development” lacking a trochophora or
veliger larva. Therefore, differential growth may play a crucial role in torsion
because muscles are differentiated after the torsion process only.
The fact that only the position of the mantle tissue and the gills but not the
anus in Pt-treated M. cornuarietis can be uncoupled from torsion processes
compared to nontreated animals, might be due to the observations made by
Demian and Yousif (1973b) who described that the intestine of this species
is entirely endodermal and opens into the mantle cavity at a relatively late
stage.
This is the first report on snail–slug conversion and experimentally induced
shell internalization in gastropods. Even though the morphological similarity
of these artificial internal shells with internal shell derivatives in extant or
fossil molluscan taxa is striking, we do not claim to be able physiologically
to trigger exactly what has evolved in cephalopods, nudibranchs, and pulmonate
slugs. The mechanisms of shell–mantle interactions in the formation
of internal shell derivatives in extant molluscs are manifold and do not follow
exactly the same developmental pattern, even though, in all cases and also
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