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Microstructure and formation of the calcareous operculum in Pyrgopolon ctenactis and Spirobranchus giganteus (Annelida, Serpulidae)

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Abstract

The calcareous operculum of Pyrgopolon ctenactis is composed of spherulitic prismatic structures. The opercular cup consists of regular spherulitic prismatic crystals; the talon has two layers, an inner with an irregular spherulitic prismatic structure (150 μm thick) and an outer with a regular spherulitic prismatic structure (110 μm thick). The outer regular structure has thick (1 μm) organic interprismatic sheets unique in biomineralization of this group, but similar to that of Bivalvia. We infer that control over biomineralization is stronger during the formation of the outer regular layer, with its thick organic interprismatic sheets, than during the formation of the inner irregular spherulitic prismatic structure, without such sheets. In Spirobranchus giganteus, opercular formation differs from that of P. ctenactis. S. giganteus has numerous pores in its opercular plate, and calcification starts with the formation of an outer irregularly oriented prismatic structure followed by an oriented prismatic structure without interprismatic sheets.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to H. Mutvei (Swedish Museum of Natural History) and Mrs. E. J. Beglinger (ZMA) for assistance with SEM. This work was supported by the European Commission’s FPVI European-funded Integrated Infrastructure Initiative to the projects SYNTHESYS, NL-TAF-111 and SE-TAF-113 and by a Sepkoski Grant from Paleontological Society. O. V. indebted to the target financed project (from the Estonian Ministry of Education and Science) SF0180051s08 (Ordovician and Silurian climate changes, as documented from the biotic changes and depositional environments in the Baltoscandian Palaeobasin) for financial support. We thank editor and two anonymous reviewers for their critical but constructive remarks.

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  1. Department of Geology, University of Tartu, Ravila 14A, 50411, Tartu, Estonia

    Olev Vinn

  2. Zoological Museum Amsterdam, Presently Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity, Naturalis, P.O.Box 9517, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Harry A. ten Hove

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  1. Olev Vinn
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Correspondence to Olev Vinn.

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Communicated by G. Purschke.

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Vinn, O., ten Hove, H.A. Microstructure and formation of the calcareous operculum in Pyrgopolon ctenactis and Spirobranchus giganteus (Annelida, Serpulidae). Zoomorphology 130, 181–188 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00435-011-0133-0

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