Muscular anatomy of an entoproct creeping-type larva reveals extraordinary high complexity and potential shared characters with mollusks

TL;DR

The study reveals that a larval form of entoprocts has an unusually complex muscular system, suggesting a close evolutionary relationship with mollusks.

Contribution

The discovery of a highly complex larval musculature in entoprocts and shared features with mollusks provides new morphological evidence for their evolutionary link.

Findings

The entoproct creeping-type larva has the most complex musculature known in lophotrochozoan larvae.

Shared muscle structures between entoproct larvae and mollusks support a close evolutionary relationship.

The larval musculature includes novel structures like frontal organ retractors and longitudinal prototroch muscles.

Abstract

Entoprocta (Kamptozoa) is an enigmatic, acoelomate, tentacle-bearing phylum with indirect development, either via a swimming- or a creeping-type larva and still debated phylogenetic position within Lophotrochozoa. Recent morphological and neuro-anatomical studies on the creeping-type larva support a close relationship of Entoprocta and Mollusca, with a number of shared apomorphies including a tetraneurous nervous system and a complex serotonin-expressing apical organ. However, many morphological traits of entoproct larvae, in particular of the putative basal creeping-type larva, remain elusive.

Applying fluorescent markers and 3D modeling, we found that this larval type has the most complex musculature hitherto described for any lophotrochozoan larva. The muscle systems identified include numerous novel and most likely creeping-type larva-specific structures such as frontal organ retractors, several other muscle fibers originating from the frontal organ, and longitudinal prototroch muscles. Interestingly, we found distinct muscle sets that are also present in several mollusks. These include paired sets of dorso-ventral muscles that intercross ventrally above the foot sole and a paired enrolling muscle that is distinct from the musculature of the body wall.

Our data add further morphological support for an entoproct-mollusk relationship (Tetraneuralia) and strongly argue for the presence of an enrolling musculature as well as seriality (but not segmentation) in the last common tetraneuralian ancestor. The evolutionary driving forces that have led to the emergence of the extraordinarily complex muscular architecture in this short-lived, non-feeding entoproct larval type remain unknown, as are the processes that give rise to the highly different and much simpler muscular bodyplan of the adult entoproct during metamorphosis.

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