Most humans experience some growing pains, but, for a young sea urchin, growing up means turning yourself inside out.
New research explores the key role a familiar substance, histamine, plays in this dramatic metamorphosis from a free swimming larva to the more familiar spiny adult that lives on the seafloor.
Well known to allergy sufferers for its association with sneezing, watery eyes and other symptoms, histamine prepares a sea urchin larva to transform into a radically different adult form within an hour, said study researcher Andreas Heyland, an assistant professor at the University of Guelph in Canada.
"They turn essentially inside out, like a sock," Heyland said.
Sea-urchin larvae swim freely in the ocean, living among other tiny organisms known as plankton, and as they mature they drift deeper into the sea. Before they can settle down on the seafloor, where they will spend the rest of their lives, the larvae must be able to pick up on environmental cues that tell them they are in the right spot.
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