Cnidabase ? Acraspeda: a database on medusozoan cnidome

GAMERO-MORA, E.; SCHIARITI, A.; MORANDINI, A. C.

CIUDAD DEL CABO

Simposio; 6TH INTERNATIONAL JELLYFISH BLOOMS SYMPOSIUM; 2019

Cnidaria is a highly conspicuous metazoan phylum in terms of autapomorphy:the cnida. Such largest animal organelle is fully represented in all extantspecies, as part of the main body forms (polyp, medusa) and their differentorganiza􀆟on (solitary, colonial, hard or so􀅌 exoskeletons animals). In general,it is used for defense, prey capture, and adhesion to substrates. Severalproposals/discussions were made in terms of their morphological differencesand general biology (e.g., life cycles and toxins) but without amacroevolu􀆟onary framework. Here we propose the establishment of a webbaseddatabase ? CnidaBase Acraspeda ? , as a morphological repositorybased on literature of almost 300 species (115 species presented some level ofinforma􀆟on) to be freely accessible. Taking into account this database, speciesdiversity, and main morphological/ecological/life cycle traits, we generated aphylogene􀆟c compara􀆟ve analysis based on cnidae, addressing hypothesesabout their evolu􀆟on and poten􀆟al impact on the diversity of Acraspeda.