Morphogenesis of Gastrovascular Canal Network in Aurelia Jellyfish: possible mechanisms

TL;DR

This paper investigates the variability in the gastrovascular canal network of Aurelia jellyfish, revealing how biased reconnections and correlations suggest underlying self-organizing mechanisms influenced by physical forces.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the variability in the jellyfish's canal network can be used to infer the underlying morphogenetic mechanisms, highlighting the role of physical forces in network formation.

Findings

Biased reconnection patterns observed in the canal network.

Correlated reconnections linked to physical influences.

Variability indicates self-organizing morphogenetic processes.

Abstract

Patterns in biology can be considered as predetermined, or arising from a self-organizing instability. Variability in the pattern can thus be interpreted as a trace of an instability, growing out from noise. Variability can thus hint toward an underlying morphogenetic mechanism. Here we present the variability of the gastrovascular system of the Jellyfish Aurelia. In this variability emerge a typical biased reconnection between canals, and correlated reconnections. Both phenomena can be interpreted as traces of mechanistic effects, the swimming contractions on the tissue surrounding the gastrovascular canals, and the mean fluid pressure inside them, respectively. This reveals the gastrovascular network as a model system to study morphogenesis of circulation networks and the morphogenetic mechanisms at play.