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Studies on the biology of limpets: III. Hermaphroditism in the three British species of Patella

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

J. M. Dodd
Affiliation:
Gatty Marine Laboratory, University of St Andrews

Extract

Sex phenomena in molluscs have been widely investigated, and the relevant literature on the subject has been reviewed by Coe (1943,1944). Coe recognizes ambisexuality (monoecism, hermaphroditism) and unisexuality (dioecism, gonochorism) and further subdivides ambisexuality into functional ambisexuality (functional hermaphroditism), consecutive sexuality, rhythmical consecutive sexuality and alternative sexuality. Of these, functional hermaphroditism is of widespread occurrence: it is encountered in all the main groups, with the exception of scaphopods and cephalopods. Of the more than 20,000 species of living gastropods approximately half are functional hermaphrodites when fully adult (Coe, 1944). Limpets of the genus Patella are unisexual, though there is evidence that sex change may occur in some of the species (Orton, 1920, 1928, in Patella vulgata; Bacci, 1947, in P. coeruled). Little is known with certainty of the mechanism of sex-determination in these animals, but sexuality appears to be labile since it seems that more than 90% of individuals of P. vulgata change sex at some stage in their life history. Aberrant sexual forms might therefore reasonably be expected to occur. In the present paper thirty hermaphrodite gonads encountered in an examination of 64,576 limpets are described and their significance in the wider context of sexual phenomena in molluscs is discussed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1956

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