Biol. Bull.
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Biol. Bull. 217: 2-5. (August 2009)
© 2009 Marine Biological Laboratory

Cycliophoran Dwarf Males Break the Rule: High Complexity with Low Cell Numbers

Ricardo Cardoso Neves1,2, Kristine J. Kürstein Sørensen2, Reinhardt Møbjerg Kristensen2 and Andreas Wanninger3,*

1 Centro de Estudos do Ambiente e do Mar, Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
2 Zoological Museum, Natural History Museum, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
3 Research Group for Comparative Zoology, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: awanninger{at}bio.ku.dk

Complexity of metazoan bodyplans is commonly assumed to be correlated to the absolute number of cells and the number of cell types present in a species (1). Sexually mature individuals of the smallest free-living animals have a minimum of several hundred somatic cells, and only secondarily simplified parasitic or commensal species range below this threshold. Males of the two hitherto described representatives of the phylum Cycliophora (2), with a body length of about 40 µm, are among the smallest existing free-living metazoans, yet they exhibit an amazingly complex bodyplan. Herein, we show that only a few dozen cells account for this complexity. We conclude therefore that metazoan complexity is not obligatorily correlated with body size or with the overall cell number of an individual. Accordingly, the earliest multicellular animals on Earth, which most probably were small individuals, may have had more complex bodyplans than commonly assumed.






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