Chloroplasts in Elysia crispata

June 30, 2003
From: Skip Pierce

Hi Bill
I can't confirm that the suspected Elysia diomedea in the recent posting is such, but it is not Elysia crispata. Not a very useful comment, I guess. However, the message gave me pause to review your message archive on E. diomedea, which includes some anatomical comparisons to E. crispata. We have found (looking with electron microscopy), in contrast to the Marcus paper you cite that says the symbiotic plastids in E. crispata are located in the connective tissue, that the symbiotic chloroplasts are in fact in the cells lining the digestive tubules-right where they ought to be. I don't know why Marcus thought otherwise. C. M. Yonge, in an ancient paper on "Tridachia" crispata (actually one of the first papers recognizing the symbiosis in elysiids, I think), mistook the plastids for zooxanthellae (but he was doing the work on the Dry Tortugas in the 1940's, so it's unlikely that he had an EM), which, if present, might be located in the blood sinuses - thus apearing to be in the connective tissue perhaps - but so far we have not seen any evidence (EM or molecular) for zooxanthellae in E. crispata - so with due respect to the Marcus paper, chloroplast location should not be used as a defining anatomical characteristic for these two species.
Hope all is well.
Skip

pierce@chuma1.cas.usf.edu

Pierce, S., 2003 (Jun 30) Chloroplasts in Elysia crispata. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/10331

Thanks Skip,
From my experience, unless specimens are properly fixed for histological examination, it is very easy to misinterpret anatomical detail. Properly 'fixing' specimens is quite difficult with opisthobranchs because if you try and 'relax' them before preservation, so they don't retract into a tiny ball, you run the risk of tissue breakdown occurring before the muscles stop working. Sometimes the skin layers can be rotting away while the foot is still capable of contraction. The tissues of the digestive system are one of the first to start disintegrating. Flatworms also cause similar difficulties. It is one of the reasons that some textbooks recommend flooding flatworms with a boiling Bouins solution [a nasty mixture including picric acid and formalin]. It certainly kills them so fast that they don't have time to contract. I have found that cold Bouins [I've never had the courage to boil it] works well on some opisthobranchs - Tergipedidae, Dermatobranchus, Elysia - but fails for many.
Cheers,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2003 (Jun 30). Comment on Chloroplasts in Elysia crispata by Skip Pierce. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/10331

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