There are some little worms – nematodes of the species Allodiplogaster sudhausi – which turn into a Dune nightmarewhen they die of hunger: they double in size, develop huge mouths and even feed on their own kind. The study by the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen, Germany, was published in Science Advances.
The different faces of A.sudhausi
A.sudhausi is a small worm that has aroused the interest of researchers because compared to other similar nematode species it is bigger (is long really as much as a fruit fly) and above all it has suffered a recent one duplication of one’s genetic heritage.
Previous studies had already shown that A.sudhaus He can have different morphological traits depending on diet that leads. In particular the specimens that are fed to bacteria they have smaller mouths and are not at all interested in their own kind, while those who are provided with a diet based only on larvae of other nematodes develop mouths a little bigger.
Don’t starve the worms
Continuing to investigate the effects of different dietary regimes on A.sudhausi, However, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen have made a discovery amazing. Feeding the worms with the fungus Penicillium camemberti (yes, the cheese one), they become larger and develop huge jawsso large that the new morphology was called “teratostomatous” (from the union of the Greek words teratosi.e. monster, e stoma, mouth bones). Not only that, they don’t have any problem with it even eat their own offspring. The same transformation, the authors of the research report, is obtained starving the worms or by placing them in conditions of overcrowding.
“They don’t get enough nutrients from mushrooms”, explained Ralph Sommer, coordinator of the research, in a statement. This is the competition for resources when they are in excess they make them become more aggressive, up to cannibalism. The extreme strategy for survival.
Extreme adaptations
The observation of three different morphologies and similar aggressive behavior was completely unexpected in nematodes (but it is not a unique in the animal world). According to the authors of the research, who conducted genetic dosage checks and also employed the system editing of Crispr DNA to trace the underlying mechanism, such extreme adaptation to stress would depend precisely on the characteristic duplication of the genetic heritage A.sudhausi and the activation of specific ones molecular switches ancestral people who guide him development of the organism.
