Respiratory gut peristalsis by sea spiders

Abstract

The fundamental constraint shaping animal systems for internal gas transport is the slow pace of diffusion [1]. In response, most macroscopic animals have evolved systems for driving internal flows using muscular pumps or cilia. In arthropods, aside from terrestrial lineages that exchange gases via tracheal systems, most taxa have a dorsal heart that drives O₂-carrying hemolymph through peripheral vessels and an open hemocoel [2], with O₂ often bound to respiratory proteins. Here we show that pycnogonids (sea spiders), a basal group of marine arthropods [3], use a previously undescribed mechanism of internal O₂ transport: flows of gut fluids and hemolymph driven by peristaltic contractions of a space-filling system of gut diverticula. This observation fundamentally expands the known range of gas-transport systems in extant arthropods.