Fertilization Ecology and Kinetics of Deep-Sea Echinoderms

在自由产卵的无脊椎动物中，受精成功或失败可能会对补充活动产生重大影响，从而影响种群动态。尽管已经在细胞和分子水平上对受精过程进行了广泛的研究，但精子如何与卵子相遇的生态学问题在很大程度上仍然没有解决。浅水棘皮动物利用光线和其他环境信号来同步产卵。许多这样的线索在深海中是不存在的；事实上，促进低密度深海种群受精的机制完全未知。杨博士和他的一位合作者发现，在深海棘球藻类中，大量的精子修饰(大精子头、双态精子、两极精子、大量的能量储存)可以提高受精成功率。初步数据还表明，一些深海精子可以存活很长一段时间，一些成年棘皮动物聚集在一起繁殖。这些研究人员提出了一项多学科的比较研究，将配子结构和受精动力学与深海精子-卵子相遇的问题联系起来。该方法包括对预测精子密度和受精成功的方程进行浅水原位验证，以及对生活在相同温度下的热带半深海棘皮动物和浅水温带物种的受精动力学进行比较。

In freely spawning invertebrates, fertilization success or failure may have a major impact on recruitment and hence on population dynamics. Although the process of fertilization has been studied extensively at the cellular and molecular levels, the ecological question of how sperm encounter eggs remains largely unresolved. Shallow-water echinoderms use light and other environmental cues to synchronize their spawning. Many such cues are not available in the deep sea; indeed, mechanisms facilitating fertilization in low-density, deep-sea populations are completely unknown. Dr. Young and a collaborator has discovered numerous sperm modifications (large sperm head, dimorphic sperm, bipolar sperm, extensive energy stores) among deep-sea echinoids that could enhance fertilization success. Preliminary data also indicate that some deep-sea sperm remain viable for very long periods and that some adult echinoderms aggregate for breeding. These investigators propose a multidisciplinary, comparative study that relates gamete untrastructure and fertilization kinetics to the problem of sperm-egg encounter in the deep sea. The approach includes shallow-water in situ validation of equations that predict sperm concentration and fertilization success and a comparison of fertilization kinetics between tropical bathyal echinoderms and shallow-water temperate species living at the same temperature.