This includes the septal retractor muscles of
anthozoan polyps, where rows of longitudinal myocytes project into the mesoglea (e.g., in gorgonian and stoloniferan octocoral polyps; Satterlie and Case, 1978, 1980).
Free amino acids exhibit
anthozoan "host factor" activity: they induce the release of photosynthate from symbiotic dino-fiagellates in vitro.
Unfortunately, many of these have not yet been adapted for use in
anthozoan cnidarians.
Nematostella vectensis is a small, burrowing
anthozoan found in estuaries along both coasts of North America and the south coast of England (Hand and Uhlinger, 1994) that can be readily maintained and manipulated in the laboratory (Hand and Uhlinger, 1992; Darling et al., 2005; Technau and Steele, 2011; Bossert et al., 2013; Layden et al., 2013; Stefanik et al., 2013).
The complement of cnidae distinguishes the
anthozoan subclasses Hexacorallia and Octocorallia (reviewed in Daly et al., 2003), and morphology of the nematocyst capsule provides the only morphological evidence for monophyly of the hexacorallian order Actiniaria (Reft and Daly, 2012).
Furthermore, the availability of sequence resources for diverse species of symbiotic
anthozoan species opens new comparative possibilities for the study of cnidarian-algal symbiosis.
Among
anthozoan larvae, protein kinase C activation mediates metamorphosis in several Red Sea corals (Henning et al., 1996, 1998), but not in the Australian coral Acropora millepora (Negri et al ., 2001).
Several species of
anthozoans have been found to contain significant quantities of DOPA and DOPA-like derivatives, such as 5-cysteinyldopa and 5-hydroxydopa, in their nerve nets (Carlberg et al., 1982; Carlberg, 1983, 1990; Hudman and McFarlane, 1995).
The latter specimen had unusually pale cerata, probably reflecting an atypical complement of the
anthozoans normally consumed by this species (Beeman and Williams 1980).
Furthermore, recent descriptions of very small phosphatized fossils that predate the Cambrian by 25 million years or more have demonstrated the presence of cnidarians that might even be stem
anthozoans (the cnidarian class that includes anemones and corals).
Gates, "Gene expression normalization in a dual-compartment system: a real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction protocol for symbiotic
anthozoans," Molecular Ecology Resources, vol.
In addition, the live cover of eight epibenthic biotic characteristics (erect macroalgae, turf algae, calcareous rhodophytes in the genus Porolithon, seagrasses, sponges, hydrocorals in the genus Millepora, encrusting non-scleractinian
anthozoans, and scleractinians were ranked as follows: 1(0%), 2(1-5%), 3(6-10%), 4(11-25%), 5(26-50%), 6(51-75) and 7(76-100%).