Chemical activation of feeding in the Caribbean reef-building coral Montastrea cavernosa

Lehman, John; Porter, James

This study looked in to the relationship between reef building coral and a variety of different compounds like animo acids, glutamic acid, aspartic acid and arginine. Specific feeding activators are being identified for an increasing number of cnidarians from a wide range of habitats. As early as 1942, Pantin demonstrated that individual organic compounds stimulate actions accompanying feeding behavior in Anemonia sulcata, and he showed that the presence of food or single organic compounds in the water lowers the threshold of mechanical stimulation necessary to discharge sea anemone nematocysts. After Loomis (1955) demonstrated that glutathione elicits feeding behavior in Hydra littoralis, the realization that many other cnidarians also respond to substances present in the tissue fluids of their prey prompted investigators to identify chemical activators for diverse members of the phylum (Lenhoff, 1968 and Lindstedt, 197la). Whether or not tactile stimuli without chemo-stimuli can induce exploration for nourishment in some species remains unsettled (Lenhoff, 1965), and recent evidence suggests that some organisms may even require two or more activators to produce a complete feeding response (Lindstedt, 1971 b and Reimer, 1972). In this paper we present evidence for activation of feeding in the massive Caribbean reef-building coral Montastrea cavernosa (Linnaeus) by single chemical agents, and for differences in receptivity of mouths and tentacles to the amino acids proline, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, and arginine.

Chemical activation of feeding in the Caribbean reef-building coral Montastrea cavernosa

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