Hi Joy,
I am Shigeki Fujiwara at Kochi University, Japan.
We are cultivating some budding ascidian species on glass slides near
Uranouchi Inlet close to the Marine Biological Institute at Usa, Kochi.
Among them Polyandrocarpa misakiensis is the most frequently used species
for our research. Please have a look at the picture in my web site at
http://www.kochi-u.ac.jp/~tatataa/
They reproduce asexually by palleal budding (body wall budding) from autumn
to early summer in Kochi. The bud forms as a protrusion of the parental body
wall, and consists of the outer epidermis and inner atrial epithelium. In a
midsummer, all the parental animals become a small bud-like small mound.
Once I happened to make paraffin sections and found that there are no
epithelial structure except for the epidermis. That was just like an epidermal
ball filled with mesenchyme-like cells. I am not sure that was a typical
example or not. In autumn, all the mound become functional individual again,
reconstructing their organs and opening their siphons. Is this interesting
as a physiological subject?
Best wishes,
shigeki
> I am a beginning PhD student in Newfoundland. I am looking for information
> on the seasonality of ascidian physiology.
Shigeki Fujiwara
Department of Biology
Faculty of Science
Kochi University
Kochi 780-8520
Japan
phone: 81-88-844-8317
fax: 81-88-844-8356
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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