Molluscs

Presented by Group 2 (BIO 1-4)

Definition
Molluscs are astonishingly diverse. This group includes worm-like
animals and giant squids, as well as animals with a single or
multiple shells, or no shell at all. They are one of the largest
animal phyla after Anthropods.
 Molluscs are coelomate lophotrochozoan protostomes, and as
such they develop via spiral mosaic cleavage and make a
coelom by schizocoely.
 The name Mollusca indicates one of their distinctive
characteristics: a soft body.
 This diverse group ranges from fairly simple organisms to some
of the most complex of invertebrates; sizes range from
microscopic to the giant squid Architeuthis.
Origin
 According to fossil evidence, molluscs originated
in the sea, and most of them have remained
there.
 The evolution occurred along the shores:
 Bivalves and gastropods moved into brackish and
freshwater habitats
 Slugs and snails invaded the land
Importance
 Food source for people around the world
 In 2006, 450,687,000 tons of molluscs were
harvested commercially on the eastern seaboard
of US, with the western seaboard and the Gulf of
Mexico adding 3,687,000 and 44,537,000 tons,
respectively.
Forms and Functions
Characteristics of Phylum Mollusca
1. Dorsal body wall forms pair of folds (mantle),
which encloses the mantle cavity, and secretes
the shell; ventral body wall specialized as a
muscular foot; radula in mouth
2. Live in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial
habitats
Characteristics of Phylum Mollusca
3. Free-living or occasionally parasitic
4. Body bilaterally symmetrical (bilateral
asymmetry in some); unsegmented; often with
definite head
5. Triploblastic body
6. Coelom limited mainly to area around heart, and
perhaps lumen of gonads, part of kidneys, and
occasionally part of the intestine
Characteristics of Phylum Mollusca
7. Surface epithelium usually ciliated and bearing
mucous glands and sensory nerve endings
8. Complex digestive system; rasping organ (radula)
usually present; anus usually emptying into
mantle cavity; internal and external ciliary
tracts often of great functional importance
9. Circular, diagonal, and longitudinal muscles in
the body wall; mantle and foot highly muscular
in some classes (for example, cephalopods and
gastropods)
Characteristics of Phylum Mollusca
10. Nervous system of paired cerebral, pleural,
pedal, and visceral ganglia, with nerve cords and
subepidermal plexus; ganglia centralized in
nerve ring in gastropods and cephalopods
11. Sensory organs of touch, smell, taste,
equilibrium, and vision (in some); the highly
developed direct eye of cephalopods is similar
to the indirect eye of vertebrates but arises as a
skin derivative in contrast to the brain eye of
vertebrates
Characteristics of Phylum Mollusca
12. No asexual reproduction
13. Both monoecious and dioecious forms; spiral
cleavage; ancestral larva a trochophore, many
with a veliger larva, some with direct
development
14. One or two kidneys (metanephridia) opening into
the pericardial cavity and usually emptying into
the mantle cavity
Characteristics of Phylum Mollusca
15. Gaseous exchange by gills, lungs, mantle, or
body surface
16. Open circulatory system (secondarily closed in
cephalopods) of heart (usually three
chambered), blood vessels, and sinuses;
respiratory pigments in blood
Head-Foot
Head-Foot
 Most mollusks have well-developed heads, which
bear their mouth and some specialized structures
 Within the mouth is a structure called radula, and
usually posterior to the mouth is the chief
locomotor organ, or foot
Head-Foot
Radula
 The radula is a rasping, protrusible, tonguelike
organ found in all mollusks except bivalves and
most solenogasters.
 Ribbonlike membrane bearing a surface of tiny,
backward-pointing teeth used for feeding.
Foot
Head-Foot
Foot
 Adapted for locomotion, for attachment to a
substratum, or for a combination of functions.
 Usually ventral, sole-like structure in which
waves of muscular contraction effect a creeping
locomotion.
Visceral Mass
Mantle & Mantle Cavity
 The mantle is a sheath of skin, extending from
the visceral mass that hangs down on each side of
the body
 Mantle cavity houses respiratory organs, which
develop from the mantle, and the mantle’s own
exposed surface serves also for gaseous exchange.
Visceral Mass
Shell
 The shell of a mollusk is secreted by the mantle and is lined
by it.
 Three layers: periostracum, primastic layer, nacreous layer
 Periostracum: the outer organic layer, composed of an
organic substance called conchiolin, which is consists of
quinine-tanned protein.
 The middle prismatic layer is composed of densely packed
prisms of calcium carbonate laid down in a protein matrix.
 The inner nacreous layer of the shell lies next to the mantle
and is secreted continuously by the mantle surface
Visceral Mass
Internal Structure and Function
 There is an open circulatory system with a pumping
heart, blood vessels, and blood sinuses.
 In a closed circulatory system, blood moves to and
from tissues within blood vessels.
 The digestive tract is complex and highly specialized,
according to feeding habits of the various mollusks.
 The nervous system contains neurosecretory cells
that, atleast in certain air-breathing snails, produce a
growth hormone and function in osmoregulation.
Reproduction and Life History
The free-
swimming
trochophore larva
that emerges from
the egg in many
mollusks is
remarkably similar
to that seen in
annelids.
Reproduction and Life History
In many molluscan groups,
the trochophore stage gives
rise to a uniquely
molluscan larval stage
called a veliger.
Classes of Molluscs
Classes of Molluscs
For more than 50 years taxonomists recognized five
classes of living molluscs: Amphineura,
Gastropoda, Scaphopoda, Bivalvia (also called
Pelecypoda), and Cephalopoda. Discovery of
Neopilina in the 1950s added another class
(Monoplacophora), and Hyman contended that
solenogasters and chitons were separate classes
(Aplacophora and Polyplacophora), lapsing the
name Amphineura.
Class Caudofoveata
 Members of class Caudofoveata
comprise about 120 species of
wormlike, marine organisms ranging
from 2 to 140 mm in length.
 They are mostly burrowers and
orient themselves vertically, with the
terminal mantle cavity and gills at
the entrance of the burrow.
 This class is sometimes called
Chaetodermomorpha.
Class Solenogasters
 Solenogasters are a small group of
about 250 species of marine animals
similar to caudofoveates.
 Solenogasters, however, usually have no
radula and no gills (although secondary
respiratory structures may be present).
 Their foot is represented by a
midventral, narrow furrow, the pedal
groove.
 This class is sometimes called
Neomeniomorpha.
Class Polyplacophora: Chitons
 Chitons represent a somewhat more diverse molluscan
group with about 1000 currently described species.
 They are rather flattened dorsoventrally and have a
convex dorsal surface that bears seven or eight
articulating limy plates, or valves; hence their name
Polyplacophora (“many plate bearers”).
 They prefer rocky surfaces in intertidal regions, although
some live at great depths.
 The mantle cavity of polyplacophorans is extended along
the side of the foot, and the gills are more numerous.
Class Polyplacophora: Chitons
Class Monoplacophora
 Monoplacophora were long thought to be extinct; they
were known only from Paleozoic shells.
 These molluscs are small and have a low, rounded shell
and a creeping foot.
 The mouth bears a characteristic radula.
 They superficially resemble limpets, but unlike most other
molluscs, have some serially repeated organs.
 These animals have three to six pairs of gills, two pairs of
heart atria, three to seven pairs of metanephridia, one or
two pairs of gonads, and a ladderlike nervous system with
10 pairs of pedal nerves.
Class Monoplacophora
Class Monoplacophora
Class Gastropoda
 Among molluscs, class
Gastropoda is by far the
largest and most diverse,
containing over 70,000
living and more than 15,000
fossil species.
 It contains snails, limpets,
slugs, whelks, conchs,
periwinkles, sea slugs, sea
hares, and sea butterflies.
Class Gastropoda
 Gastropods are usually sluggish,
sedentary animals because most of
them have heavy shells and slow
locomotion. Some are specialized for
climbing, swimming, or burrowing.
Shells are their chief defense.
 The range of gastropod habitats is
large. Marine gastropods are common
both in littoral zones and at great
depths, and some are even pelagic.
Some are adapted to brackish water
and others to freshwater.
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Torsion is a gastropod synapomorphy which occurs
in all gastropods during larval development. Torsion
is the rotation of the visceral mass, mantle, and
shell 180˚ with respect to the head and foot of the
gastropod. This rotation brings the mantle cavity
and the anus to an anterior position above the
head.
Class Gastropoda: Torsion
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Coiling, or spiral winding, of the shell and visceral
mass is not the same as torsion. Coiling may occur in
the larval stage at the same time as torsion, but the
fossil record shows that coiling was a separate
evolutionary event and originated in gastropods
earlier than did torsion. Nevertheless, all living
gastropods have descended from coiled, torted
ancestors, although some have lost these
characteristics.
Class Gastropoda: Coiling
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Feeding habits of gastropods are as varied as their
shapes and habitats, but all include use of some
adaptation of the radula. Most gastropods are
herbivorous, rasping particles of algae from hard
surfaces. Some herbivores are grazers, some are
browsers, and some are planktonic feeders. Some
are also scavengers that feeds on decaying animals
and some are also carnivores.
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Internal Forms and Functions:
Respiration in most gastropods is performed by a
ctenidium (two gills is the primitive condition,
found in some prosobranchs) located in the mantle
cavity, though some aquatic forms lack gills and
instead depend on the mantle and skin.
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Internal Forms and Functions:
 Most gastropods have a single nephridium
(kidney). The circulatory and nervous systems are
well developed
 Many gastropods perform courtship ceremonies.
During copulation in monoecious species there is
an exchange of spermatozoa or spermatophores
(bundles of sperms).
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Internal Forms and Functions:
 The latter incorporates three pairs of ganglia
connected by nerves. Sense organs include eyes or
simple photoreceptors, statocysts, tactile organs,
and chemoreceptors.
Class Gastropoda
Major of Groups of
Gastropod
Prosobranchs:
This group contains most marine
snails and some freshwater and
terrestrial gastropods.
Class Gastropoda
Major of Groups of
Gastropod
Prosobranchs:
Prosobranchs have one pair of tentacles. Sexes
are usually separate. An operculum is often
present. They range in size from periwinkles and
small limpets horse conchs (Pleuroploca), which
grow shells up to 60 cm in length, making them
the largest gastropods in the Atlantic Ocean.
Class Gastropoda
Major of Groups of Gastropod
Opisthobranchs:
Opisthobranchs are an odd assemblage of
molluscs that include sea slugs, sea hares, sea
butterflies, and bubble shells. They are nearly
all marine; most are shallow-water forms,
hiding under stones and seaweed; a few are
pelagic. Currently nine or more orders of
opisthobranchs are recognized.
Class Gastropoda
Major of Groups of Gastropod
Pulmonates:
Pulmonates include land and most freshwater
snails and slugs (and a few brackish and saltwater
forms). They have lost their ancestral ctenidia,
but their vascularized mantle wall has become a
lung, which fills with air by contraction of the
mantle floor (some aquatic species have
developed secondary gills in the mantle cavity).
Class Bivalvia (Pelycypoda)
 Bivalvia are also called Pelecypoda (pel-e-sip′o-da),
or “hatchet-footed” animals, as their name implies
(Gr. pelekys, hatchet, + pous, podos, foot). They are
bivalved molluscs that include mussels, clams,
scallops, oysters, and shipworms.
 Most bivalves are sedentary filter feeders that
depend on currents produced by cilia on their gills to
gather food materials. Unlike gastropods, they have
no head, no radula, and very little cephalization.
 Most bivalves are marine, but many live in brackish
water and in streams, ponds, and lakes.
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Shell:
Bivalves are laterally compressed, and their two
shells (valves) are held together dorsally by a
hinge ligament that causes the valves to gape
ventrally. The valves are drawn together by
adductor muscles that work in opposition to the
hinge ligament. The umbo is the oldest part of the
shell, and growth occurs in concentric lines
around it.
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Body and Mantle:
 The visceral mass is suspended from the dorsal midline,
and the muscular foot is attached to the visceral mass
anteroventrally. The ctenidia hang down on each side, each
covered by a fold of the mantle. The posterior edges of the
mantle folds are modified to form dorsal excurrent and
ventral incurrent openings.
 In some marine bivalves the mantle is drawn out into long
muscular siphons that allow the clam to burrow into the
mud or sand and to extend the siphons to the water above.
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Locomotion:
Bivalves initiate movement by extending
a slender muscular foot between the
valves. They pump blood into their foot,
causing it to swell and to act as an
anchor in the mud or sand; then
longitudinal muscles contract to shorten
the foot and pull the animal forward.
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Gills:
Gaseous exchange occurs through both mantle and
gills. Gills of most bivalves are highly modified for
filter-feeding; they are derived from primitive
ctenidia by a great lengthening of filaments on each
side of the central axis.
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Feeding:
Most bivalves are filter feeders. Respiratory
currents bring both oxygen and organic materials to
the gills, where ciliary tracts direct currents to the
tiny pores of the gills.
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Internal Structures:
 The floor of the stomach of filter-feeding bivalves
is folded into ciliary tracts for sorting a continuous
stream of particles.
 The three-chambered heart, which lies in the
pericardial cavity, has two atria and a ventricle
and beats slowly, ranging from 0.2 to 30 times per
minute.
 A pair of U-shaped kidneys (nephridial tubules) lies
just ventral and posterior to the heart
Class Gastropoda
Forms and Functions
Reproduction and Development:
Sexes are usually separate. Gametes are
discharged into the suprabranchial chamber
to be carried out with the excurrent flow. An
oyster may produce 50 million eggs in a
single season. In most bivalves fertilization is
external. The embryo develops into
trochophore, veliger, and spat (juvenile
shelled form) stages.
Class Scaphopoda
Phylogeny and Adaptive
Diversification
Molluscs
 Arose during Precambrian times
 A Cambrian fossil radula was recently found in
Alberta, Canada
 Considered to be as protostomes, allied with the
annelids in the lophotrochozoan subgroup
Trochozoa
 Molluscs and Annelids
The body is metameric; composed of There are no true
serially repeated segments segments found

Coelom is greatly reduced

Well-developed coelom
Opinions
 Molluscs were derived from a wormlike ancestor independent of
annelids
 Share an ancestor with annelids after the advent of the coelom
 Share a segmented common ancestor with annelids
Hypothesis:
 Annelids and Molluscs share a segmented ancestor is
strengthened if the repeated body parts present in Neopilina,
and in some chitons, can be considered evidence of
metamerism.
 However, morphological and developmental studies indicate
that these parts are not remnants of an ancestral metameric
body.
Perspectives on the Evolution of
Repeated Body Parts:
 Comes from analysis of molecular characters from a wide
range of molluscs, including a monoplacophoran
Monoplacophora Chitons Clade Serialia

 Further, clade Serialia is not the sister taxon to other

molluscs,
 Instead, clade Serialia is phylogenetically nested within a
clade of unsegmented molluscs, indicating that the repeated
structures are derived molluscan features, not ancestral
features.
Diversity of Molluscs
 Adaptation to different habitats
 Modes of life
 Wide variety of feeding methods (ranges from
sedentary filter feeding to active predation)
Glandular Mantle
Shown adaptive capacity than any other molluscan
structure:
 Secreting the shell and forming mantle cavity
 Modified into gills, lungs, siphons, and apertures
 Functions as locomotion
 Feeding processes
 Sensory capacity
Shell
Undergone a variety of evolutionary adaptations:
 Supports and protects the soft parts of molluscs