Orange-footed sea cucumber explained

The orange-footed sea cucumber (Cucumaria frondosa) is the largest sea cucumber in New England, United States.[1] It is one of the most abundant and widespread species of holothurians within the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea (Russia),[2] being most abundant along the eastern coast of North America.[3] [4]

Description

These sea cucumbers reach around 20cm (10inches) in length and have ten branched oral tentacles ranging in colour from orange to black. This species has a football shape with a leathery skin ranging in colour from yellowish white to dark brownish-black and is covered with five rows of retractile tube feet.[5] [6] The young are about 1 mm to 6 mm long and are translucent orange and pink.[5] Three of these bands of tube feet are found on bottom whereas the top rows are often reduced. Adults of C. frondosa have a reduced numbers of spicules (skeletal structures) shaped like rounded plates with many holes.[7] The sexes can be identified by the conspicuous tube-shaped (female) or heart-shaped (male) gonopore located under the crown of oral tentacles.[8]

Habitat

Their habitat is rocks, crevices or low-tide Arctic water.[9] They are known to cover vast areas of the substrate at depths of less than 30 meters (100 ft).[4] [10]

Feeding

The sea cucumber has modified its oral tube feet to form tentacles surrounding its mouth which are retracted when disturbed or bringing food into its mouth.[11] The tentacles are displayed in a ring form with ten individual tentacles that are each highly branched looking treelike. Most sea cucumbers are deposit feeders but Cucumaria frondosa are a suspension feeding[12] organism where they catch available particles in the ocean on their tentacles.

Sea cucumbers were tested in the Atlantic Ocean to see if there was seasonality to the feeding of cucumbers. Specifically C. frondosa were shown to have this feeding adaptation, and feed only in the spring (March to April) when the day length, water temperature, and chlorophyll concentration began to increase.[13] A combination of these environmental cues is accountable for the feeding of C. frondosa because just one of them is not enough to trigger the animal to start eating. The chlorophyll concentration increases during this time due to a phytoplankton bloom season and larger amount of primary production. The cucumber does not eat through the colder seasons and will start back up again in the spring.

Notes and References

  1. Leland W. Pollock 1998 - A Practical Guide to the Marine Animals of Northeastern North America -Rutgers University Press Page 276
  2. Gudimova, E.N., Gudimov, A., and Colline, P. 2004. A study of the biology for fishery in two populations of Cucumaria frondosa: In the Barents Sea (Russia) and in the Gulf of Maine (USA). In Echinoderms: München. Edited by T. Heinzeller and J.H. Nebelsick. CRC Press, London.
  3. Hyman, L.H. 1955. The invertebrates: Echinodermata. McGraw-Hill Book Company Inc., New York.
  4. Jordan, A.J. 1972. On the ecology and behavior of Cucumaria frondosa (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea) at Lamoine Beach, Maine. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Biology, The University of Maine, Orono, M.E. 74 pp.
  5. Gosner, K.L. 1978. This species of Sea Cucumber can move about two feet per day. It is able to accomplish this task by the movement of its stomach wall muscles. Peterson field guides: Atlantic seashore. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
  6. Jordan, A. J. 1972. On the ecology and behaviour of Cucumaria frondosa (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea at Lamoine Beach, Maine. Ph.D. thesis, University of Maine and Orono, Orono. United States.
  7. Levin, V. S., and Gudimova, E. N. 2000. Taxonomic interrelations of holothurians Cucumaria frondosa and C. japonica (Dendrochirotida, Cucumariidae). S.P.C. Beche-de-mer Inf. Bull. 13: 22-29.
  8. Hamel . Jean-Francois . Mercier . Annie . Early development, settlement, growth, and spatial distribution of the sea cucumber Cucumaria frondosa (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea) . Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences . 1996 . 53 . 2 . 253–271 . 10.1139/f95-186.
  9. Andrew J. Martinez - 2003 - Marine Life of the North Atlantic: Canada to New England - Aqua Quest Publications Page 178
  10. Singh . Rabindra . MacDonald . Bruce A. . Lawton . Peter . Thomas . Martin L.H. . Feeding response of the dendrochirote sea cucumber Cucumaria frondosa (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea) to changing food concentrations in the laboratory . Canadian Journal of Zoology . 1998 . 76 . 10 . 1842–1849 . 10.1139/z98-133.
  11. Pechenik, Jan A. 2010. Biology of the Invertebrates. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Boston, Massachusetts.
  12. Web site: Filter and suspension feeders . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100214150425/http://www.coralscience.org/main/articles/aquaculture-a-husbandry-4/filter-feeders . 14 February 2010 . Tim Wijgerde . Coral Publications . 2008–2009.
  13. Singh . Rabindra . MacDonald . Bruce A. . Thomas . Martin L. H. . Lawton . Peter . Patterns of seasonal and tidal feeding activity in the dendrochirote sea cucumber Cucumaria frondosa (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea) in the Bay of Fundy, Canada . Marine Ecology Progress Series . 1999 . 187 . 133–145 . 24853361 .

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