Chemical Interactions in Larval Settling of a Marine Gastropod

Abstract

Prior to the 1930s, it was a generally accepted notion that larvae of benthic marine invertebrates were, in the timing of their metamosphosis, at the mercy of chance. If the ocean’s currents carried them over substrata suitable for adult life when the time for metamorphosis arrived, they survived; if the substrate were not suitable, the larvae perished. Beginning with observations of Mortensen¹ and Day and Wilson², students of marine ecology began to see that the situation relative to larval settling was more controlled, that larvae could execute a “choice” of substratum. It was additionally recorded that larvae could actually delay metamorphosis until suitable substrata were found³.