Tentacle structure in freshwater bryozoans

Tentacles are the main food-gathering organs of bryozoans. The most common design is a hollow tube of extracellular matrix (ECM), covered with ten columns of epithelial cells on the outside, and a coelothelium on the inside. Nerves follow the ECM, going between the bases of some epidermal cells. The tentacle musculature includes two bundles formed by myoepithelial cells of the coelothelium. The tentacles of freshwater (phylactolaemate) bryozoans, however, differ somewhat in structure from those of marine bryozoans. Here, we describe the tentacles of three species of phylactolaemates, comparing them to gymnolaemates and stenolaemates. Phylactolaemate tentacles tend to be longer, and with more voluminous coeloms. The composition of the frontal cell row and the number of frontal nerves is variable in freshwater bryozoans, but constant in marine groups. Abfrontal cells form a continuous row in Phylactolaemata, but occur intermittently in other two classes. Phylactolaemata lack the microvillar cuticle reported in Gymnolaemata. Abfrontal sensory tufts are always composed of pairs of mono- and/or biciliated cells. This arrangement differs from individual abfrontal ciliary cells of other bryozoans: monociliated in Stenolaemata and monociliated and multiciliated ones in Gymnolaemata. In all three groups, however, ciliated abfrontal cells probably serve as mechanoreceptors. We confirm previously described phylactolemate traits: an unusual arrangement of two-layered coelothelium lining the lateral sides of the tentacle and oral slits in the intertentacular membrane. As previously reported, tentacle movements involved in feeding differ between bryozoan groups, with phylactolaemates tending to have slower movements than both gymnolaemates and stenolaemates, and a narrower behavioral repertoire than gymnolaemates. The morphological and ultrastructural differences between the freshwater species we studied and marine bryozoans may be related to these functional differences. Muscle organization, tentacle and coelom size, and degree of confluence between tentacle and lophophore coeloms probably account for much of the observed behavioral variability.