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1 November 2002 Seasonal Changes in the Sexualization of the Planarian Dugesia ryukyuensis
Kazuya Kobayashi, Sachiko Arioka, Motonori Hoshi
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Abstract

Asexual individuals in a fissiparous clone of the planarian Dugesia ryukyuensis develop hermaphroditic sexual organs and eventually undergo sexual reproduction instead of asexual reproduction if they are fed with the adults of Bdellocephala brunnea, an oviparous planaria. The experimental sexualization means that the adults of B. brunnea contain a putative sexualizing substance(s), which is the first candidate for the chemical(s) responsible for switching from asexual to sexual reproduction in metazoans. In the present study, the feeding experiment over two consecutive years revealed that the experimental sexualization has seasonal changes. In summer, the asexual individuals were not fully sexualized, though they developed a pair of ovaries. The developing ovaries degenerate if the feeding is stopped. On the contrary, in winter, they developed all the sexual organs. The sexual organs keep developing even if the feeding is stopped after a certain critical point named the point-of-no-return. It was demonstrated that the extreme difference of the sexualization was attributed to the seasonal change of the quality and/or quantity of the sexualizing substance contained in B. brunnea, as well as the minor change of the susceptibility to the sexualizing substance in the asexual individuals. On the other hand, the histological research of B. brunnea revealed that the degree of the maturation of the sexual organs varied extremely through a year. Taking these results into account, we suggest that the production of the sexualizing substance has no direct relation to any particular mature sexual organs.

Kazuya Kobayashi, Sachiko Arioka, and Motonori Hoshi "Seasonal Changes in the Sexualization of the Planarian Dugesia ryukyuensis," Zoological Science 19(11), 1267-1278, (1 November 2002). https://doi.org/10.2108/zsj.19.1267
Received: 8 July 2002; Accepted: 1 August 2002; Published: 1 November 2002
KEYWORDS
asexual-sexual switch
planaria
seasonal changes
sexualization
sexualizing substance
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