When cephalopod eggs were incubated in artificial sea water it was found that they sometimes resulted in hatchlings with defects of the statocyst suprastructure, leading to the severe behavioural defect of uncontrolled swimming. Experiments in defined media (seven basic salts mixed in deionized water) with seven species of cephalopods demonstrated clearly that there is 100 % normal development of the aragonite statoliths when strontium levels were 8 mg l−1. Conversely, statoliths did not develop when strontium was absent. In cuttlefish, the growth of the cuttlebone was also affected adversely when strontium was absent. In mariculture production tanks, supplementing commercial artificial sea water with strontium to normal levels of 8 mg l−1 almost eliminated the occurrence of abnormal hatchlings. Circumstantial evidence indicates that there is a critical window in development during which strontium is required for normal development. The role of strontium in biomineralization during embryogenesis is unknown, but it appears to be important in the Mollusca.

In this paper we demonstrate a correlation between levels of the element strontium (Sr) in sea water and embryonic development of statoliths. These mineralized aragonite structures lie within the statocyst organs, which control balance for activities such as swimming and attack. Hatchling octopuses, squids and cuttlefish reared in our recirculating seawater systems since 1980 often showed behavioural defects characterized by swimming in a spinning, somersaulting or corkscrew motion; they were termed spinners (Colmers et al. 1984). Examination of spinners at the gross anatomical level revealed abnormal statocyst development, namely a reduction or absence of the statoliths (Fig. 1). We were unable to identify the agent responsible, but we speculated that environmental parameters, particularly those involved in water quality, pH and temperature, might be responsible for the defects in statolith formation. In experiments since then, we noticed that the incidence of spinners was considerably higher in hatchlings reared in the commercial artificial sea water Instant Ocean® (Mentor, Ohio) than in those exposed to natural sea water (NSW) during embryogenesis. This was a significant concern since local sea water near Galveston was variable in quality and thus unsuitable for cephalopod mariculture. Strontium is a conservative element in ocean water and is present at a concentration of 90 μmmol kg−1 or about 8p.p.m. (Bruland, 1983); recent Instant Ocean® products have lacked many trace elements, including Sr (Bidwell & Spotte, 1985).

Fig. 1.

Living normal (A) and spinner (B) hatchlings of the squid Loligo pealei. Statoliths (arrowheads) are visible on the macula statica princeps in the statocysts (s) of the normal animal only. Scale bar, 200 μm.

Fig. 1.

Living normal (A) and spinner (B) hatchlings of the squid Loligo pealei. Statoliths (arrowheads) are visible on the macula statica princeps in the statocysts (s) of the normal animal only. Scale bar, 200 μm.

In 1983, spinner larvae of the opisthobranch gastropod Aplysia californica were noted during laboratory culture at Woods Hole and it has since been reported that Sr is required in artificial sea water for normal embryonic development of both the shell and the statolith (Bidwell et al. 1986). Larvae cultured in the absence of Sr tumble through the water column or spin in place on the bottom. There is a dose response of mineralization to concentrations of Sr in the seawater medium as well as a critical window of exposure of this element during embryogenesis. Similarly, the bivalve molluscs Mercenaria mercenaria and Bankia gouldi require Sr for embryonic shell formation (Gallager et al. 1988).

In the present experiments, carried out from 1984 to 1986, experimental media included four seawater types: (A) defined basal medium composed of (in g l−1): NaCl, 23-88; MgCl2.6H2O, 10·68; Na2SO4, 4·01; CaCl2.6H2O, 1·51; KC1, 0·725; NaHCO3, 0·196; NaBr, 0·086; (B) basal medium plus strontium chloride added as SrCl2.6H2O at 0·024 g l−1, which is approximately equivalent to 9·1 × 10−4 mol l−1 (see Bidwell et al. 1986 for further details); (C) Instant Ocean® and (D) natural sea water. Water quality of experimental cultures was monitored by measurement of ammonia-, nitrite-and nitrate-nitrogen, pH and salinity. Experimental media were refreshed periodically to ensure that water quality standards for cephalopod culture were maintained (Hanlon, 1987). Strontium levels of the water in our recirculating systems were monitored using flame atomic absorption spectroscopy. All experiments were performed at room temperature (20°C).

For experiments with the defined media (i.e. basal medium at Op.p.m. Sr and basal medium plus SrCl2 at 8p.p.m. Sr) cephalopod eggs were collected from our recirculating systems or from the sea, their stage of development was recorded and they were then placed in 1-1 jars filled with the test artificial sea water with continuous aeration and periodic water changes. Upon hatching, animals were scored for their swimming behaviour or for statolith development using light microscopy to assess the size and number of statoliths formed.

Test organisms for the defined media experiments included Octopus maya, O. vulgaris, O. digueti, the cuttlefish Sepia officinalis and the squid Loligo vulgaris, thus representing the three major orders of extant cephalopods. Eggs used for these experiments were collected from freshly laid broods in our laboratory and immediately transferred to the test sea waters. The L. vulgaris eggs were collected from the sea off Roscoff, France (15–16°C), shipped to Galveston and placed into our recirculating systems containing Instant Ocean®. These eggs had reached embryonic stage 16 (Arnold, 1965) when transferred to the 1-1 jars filled with defined media.

The efficacy of Sr supplements to Instant Ocean® for reducing the incidence of spinners in our large recirculating systems was also tested. Strontium chloride was added to culture tanks containing about 20001 of Instant Ocean® (see Hanlon & Forsythe, 1985; Yang et al. 1986, for descriptions of these systems). Test organisms for these studies included the squids Loligo vulgaris and L. forbesi. Eggs from L. vulgaris were collected as described above. Those of L. forbesi were collected from Tor Bay, England, shipped to Galveston and divided between two tanks filled with Instant Ocean® or natural sea water.

Results in basal medium (Op.p.m. Sr) were clear (Table 1). All octopuses were spinners whereas those cultured in the presence of Sr (8p.p.m.) during embryonic development swam normally. Statoliths from the Octopus vulgaris spinners were inspected with light microscopy and found to be irregular in shape and considerably reduced in size compared with controls; other animals were missing one or both statoliths.

Table 1.

Effects of strontium on swimming behaviour and statolith development

Effects of strontium on swimming behaviour and statolith development
Effects of strontium on swimming behaviour and statolith development

Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) reared in the absence of Sr during embryogenesis were all spinners. Animals swam in a loop-to-loop pattern and bumped into the bottom and walls of the container; many rested upside down on the bottom of the jar. Some cuttlefish learned to capture mysid shrimps by extending their tentacles and grabbing food without moving from the bottom, and we have reared such animals into the juvenile stages. All spinner cuttlefish lacked statoliths, and it is likely that the statoconia were absent also, since Budelmann (1975) showed in Sepia that the absence of statoliths but presence of the statoconia resulted in fairly normal compensatory eye movements needed for swimming. Each cuttlebone was also incompletely developed (Fig. 2). This structure was reduced in size compared with those from normal animals, and although the dorsal shield was formed, the flotation chambers were absent, corresponding to stage 25 of embryonic development. At the time these experiments were conducted, we lacked a sufficient number of eggs for controls of basal medium plus Sr, but comparisons have been made with hundreds of normal hatchlings since reared in our recirculating tanks containing Instant Ocean® supplemented with Sr to 7–8 p.p.m.

Fig. 2.

Normal (A) and abnormal (B) cuttlebone of a hatchling cuttlefish Sepia officinalis. See text for details. Scale bar, 1mm.

Fig. 2.

Normal (A) and abnormal (B) cuttlebone of a hatchling cuttlefish Sepia officinalis. See text for details. Scale bar, 1mm.

Hatchlings of Loligo vulgaris reared in defined media were not scored on behaviour but were checked for statolith development (Table 1). Those reared in the presence of Sr during development had two normal statoliths, but all animals from the basal medium without Sr had only one statolith or lacked them altogether. Table 2 outlines the results of supplementing Instant Ocean® in our recirculating systems with strontium chloride. The majority of animals from these tanks had two normal statoliths, and the Loligo forbesi checked for swimming behaviour were normal.

Table 2.

Results of strontium supplementation of Instant Ocean sea water (10) on statolith formation in squids

Results of strontium supplementation of Instant Ocean sea water (10) on statolith formation in squids
Results of strontium supplementation of Instant Ocean sea water (10) on statolith formation in squids

Our results demonstrate an irrefutable correlation between Sr in the culture medium during embryogenesis and both swimming behaviour and mineralized tissue development in coleoid cephalopods. The experiments with the defined media show that the absence of Sr results in 100 % of the test organisms being afflicted with the spinner syndrome and that the presence of this element during embryogenesis eliminates this structural and behavioural abnormality.

Supplementation of our recirculating systems containing Instant Ocean® with strontium chloride has greatly reduced the occurrence of spinners in our mariculture operation, whereas previously we had variable and typically large numbers of these defective hatchlings in our tanks (26–95 % of the initial brood, Colmers et al. 1984). The apparently random occurrence of large numbers of spinners in past cultures appears to have been related to the fluctuating background Sr contamination of the Instant Ocean® sea salts; levels varied widely from 0·1 to 3·7 p.p.m. but in all cases were less than 8p.p.m. Nevertheless, other undefined factors may play a role in statolith development since spinners are occasionally still found in both our supplemented Instant Ocean® and natural seawater cultures (see Table 2; see also Hanlon et al. 1988). We cannot yet explain these results. It was particularly surprising that 28 of 170 (or 16%) of the Loligo forbesi hatchlings (Table 2) in natural sea water were abnormal. However, it is known that standard biological, chemical and physical filtration processes in recirculating systems can remove or deplete various elements (Spotte, 1979). This line of inquiry deserves future attention.

It was beyond the scope of this study to characterize the response of cephalopod embryonic mineralization to varying Sr levels or to determine whether there is a critical window of exposure to this element. The gastropod Aplysia californica and the bivalves Mercenaria mercenaria and Bankia gouldi have nearly identical dose-response curves to Sr, each species requiring a minimum of 4–5p.p.m. for normal mineralization (Gallagher et al. 1988). Cephalopods probably have a similar requirement. Also, the critical developmental windows of the gastropod and the bivalves occur just prior to and at the beginning of the mineralization process of statolith and shell, and therefore we are tempted to speculate that a similar window exists for cephalopods. This would occur around stages 17–22 (Arnold, 1965) when the primordium or Anlage of the statocyst organ appears, followed by the formation of the statoliths themselves at stage 22 (Naef, 1928; Meister, 1972; Segawa et al. 1988). Circumstantial evidence for this is that most embryos of L. vulgaris subjected to low levels of 3·73 p.p.m. Sr from stages 10 to 16, then 5·59 p.p.m. until hatching developed normal statoliths (Table 2).

Cephalopod statoliths and other mineralized hard parts contain less than 1 % Sr by weight, although Sr is a common component of other molluscan shells (Radtke, 1983; Lowenstam et al. 1984). Despite the wealth of data on Ca/Sr ratios in molluscan and other tissues (Lowenstam, 1964; Weiner et al. 1983), the physiological significance of the requirement for Sr during the biomineralization process remains to be elucidated. Strontium is obviously important and has been used to mark growth rings in squid statoliths (Hurley et al. 1985). A review of the pertinent literature on Sr in molluscs is given by Bidwell et al. (1986).

In our original report (Colmers et al. 1984) we noted the similarities in the behavioural as well as the anatomical deficits between cephalopods and manganese-deficient mice (Erway et al. 1986). Both organisms display ataxic behaviour along with abnormal statolith or otoconia formation. The more detailed work with Aplysia californica and Sr (Bidwell et al. 1986) indicates that there are parallels between the mammalian and invertebrate phenomena, particularly with respect to the timing of the critical windows of exposure and the dose responses to the respective metal ions (Hurley & Everson, 1963; Erway, 1984; Erway et al. 1986). Manganese is required for enzyme systems involved in mucopolysaccharide synthesis of the cartilage in both birds and mammals (Erway et al. 1986). Although the chemical composition of the molluscan organic matrix of shell and statoliths has not been described in detail, mucopolysaccharides are a component of molluscan tissue (Weiner et al. 1983). Perhaps the Sr system in marine invertebrates is similar to the manganese system operative in mammals.

Our finding that Sr supplementation of Instant Ocean® artificial sea water reduces the incidence of spinners removes a major impediment to our cephalopod mariculture operation. A primary objective of our programme is to culture large numbers of cephalopods under controlled conditions for biomedical research. Ironically, the discovery of a technique for producing a statolith-less cephalopod may prove useful to the biomedical community. We have reared the statolith-less cuttlefish and octopuses to the juvenile stage, and these organisms continue to manifest ataxic behaviour. Such experimental preparations have the potential of providing neurobiologists with useful comparative models.

We thank Won Tack Yang, Phillip Turk and Lea Bradford for data collection and help with the squid trials, and Sigurd von Boletzky in Banyuls was very helpful in obtaining cuttlefish and octopus eggs. John Forsythe and Randy DeRusha performed most of the octopus trials. F. Paul DiMarco helped assemble statolith counts and water quality information. Laura Koppe typed the manuscript. We are especially grateful to B.-U. Budelmann, who provided translations of German literature and many helpful comments on a penultimate draft. We particularly appreciate funding from DHHS grants RR01279 and RR01024 (RTH) as well as from the Marine Medicine Account of the Marine Biomedical Institute.

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