Spinning a marine silk for the purpose of tube-building

Abstract

Amphipod silk is a fibrous, self-secreted, adhesive substance employed in tube-building by amphipod species within the Corophiidea, Ampeliscoidea and Aetiopedidea. In the present study we provide a detailed characterisation of a novel, marine-based silk production system situated in pereiopods 3 and 4 in the corophioid Crassicorophium bonellii and the aorid Lembos websteri. The silk material is a mixture of protein and mucopolysaccharides. Ultrastructural and histological analyses revealed that silk in both species is produced in several rosette-type glands, presumed to be of two different types. These glands are distributed among all limb articles apart from the coxa but mainly in the basis and merus of pereiopods 3 and 4. Secretion commences in the basis and a thread-like secretion product leaves the glandular pereiopod through a cuticular pore near the dactylar tip. The silk's physical and chemical properties most likely change while moving through the dactylar duct, which subdivides into several small ductules and terminates in a spindle-shaped chamber. This chamber, which communicates with the exterior, may be considered a silk reservoir in which the silk appears fibrous. For the first time an independently evolved, marine arthropod silk processing and secretion system is described. © 2012 The Crustacean Society. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden.