Histology and transcriptomic analyses of barnacles with different base materials and habitats shed lights on the duplication and chemical diversification of barnacle cement proteins

Background Barnacles are sessile crustaceans that attach to underwater surfaces using barnacle cement proteins. Barnacles have a calcareous or chitinous membranous base, and their substratum varies from biotic (e.g. corals/sponges) to abiotic surfaces. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the cement protein (CP) composition and chemical properties of different species vary according to the attachment substrate and/or the basal structure. We examined the histological structure of cement glands and explored the variations in cement protein homologs of 12 barnacle species with different attachment habitats and base materials. Results Cement gland cells in the rocky shore barnacles Tetraclita japonica formosana and Amphibalanus amphitrite are eosinophilic, while others are basophilic. Transcriptome analyses recovered CP homologs from all species except the scleractinian coral barnacle Galkinia sp. A phylogenomic analysis based on sequences of CP homologs did not reflect a clear phylogenetic pattern in attachment substrates. In some species, certain CPs have a remarkable number of paralogous sequences, suggesting that major duplication events occurred in CP genes. The examined CPs across taxa show consistent bias toward particular sets of amino acid. However, the predicted isoelectric point (pI) and hydropathy are highly divergent. In some species, conserved regions are highly repetitive. Conclusions Instead of developing specific cement proteins for different attachment substrata, barnacles attached to different substrata rely on a highly duplicated cementation genetic toolkit to generate paralogous CP sequences with diverse chemical and biochemical properties. This general CP cocktail might be the key genetic feature enabling barnacles to adapt to a wide variety of substrata.

Five hundred million years to mobility: directed locomotion and its ecological function in a turtle barnacle

Movement is a fundamental characteristic of life, yet some invertebrate taxa, such as barnacles, permanently affix to a substratum as adults. Adult barnacles became ‘sessile’ over 500 Ma; however, we confirm that the epizoic sea turtle barnacle, Chelonibia testudinaria , has evolved the capacity for self-directed locomotion as adults. We also assess how these movements are affected by water currents and the distance between conspecifics. Finally, we microscopically examine the barnacle cement. Chelonibia testudinaria moved distances up to 78.6 mm yr −1 on loggerhead and green sea turtle hosts. Movements on live hosts and on acrylic panels occasionally involved abrupt course alterations of up to 90°. Our findings showed that barnacles tended to move directly against water flow and independent of nearby conspecifics. This suggests that these movements are not passively driven by external forces and instead are behaviourally directed. In addition, it indicates that these movements function primarily to facilitate feeding, not reproduction. While the mechanism enabling movement remained elusive, we observed that trails of cement bore signs of multi-layered, episodic secretion. We speculate that proximal causes of movement involve one or a combination of rapid shell growth, cement secretion coordinated with basal membrane lifting, and directed contraction of basal perimeter muscles.