AN AUTORADIOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF THE SPECIES SPECIFICITY DURING SPONGE CELL REAGGREGATION

¹ Department of Zoology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514

Unlabeled sponge aggregates were placed into suspensions of radioactively labeled sponge cells. All combinations of five species (Haliclona variabilis, Haliclona viridis, Tedania ignis, Homaxinella rudis, and Dysidea crawshayi) were used for aggregate collection experiments designed to test for species specificity of adhesion. Preliminary experiments had shown that freshly disaggregated cells from any two of the species would co-mingle during early aggregation. The aggregate collection system, however, showed time presence of adhesive specificity for all five species. Labeled and unlabeled cells became mixed when an unlabeled aggregate collected radioactive homotypic cells. Very few labeled cells were collected and mixing was not observed in heterotypic combinations.

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