Townsend Victor R, Schaus Maynard H, Zvonareva Tatyana, Illinik Jeffrey J, Evans John T
Department of Biology, Virginia Wesleyan College, 1584 Wesleyan Drive, Norfolk, Virginia, 23502.
J Morphol. 2017 Jan;278(1):73-88. doi: 10.1002/jmor.20620. Epub 2016 Nov 8.
Previous studies of leg injuries in harvestmen have focused on the fitness consequences for individuals that use autospasy (voluntary detachment of the leg) as a secondary defense mechanism. Leg damage among non-autotomizing species of laniatorean harvestmen has not been investigated. Under laboratory conditions, we damaged femur IV of Cynorta marginalis and observed with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) the changes in these wounds over ten days. We also used SEM to examine leg damage from individuals of three species of cosmetid harvestmen that were collected in the field. On the basis of changes in the external surface of the hemolymph coagulum, we classified these wounds as fresh (coagulum forming), recent (coagulum with smooth surface), older (coagulum is scale-like with visible cell fragments), and fully healed (scale replaced by new cuticle growth on the terminal stump). Our observations indicate that wound healing in harvestmen occurs in a manner comparable to that of other chelicerates. Leg injuries exhibited interspecific variation with respect to the overall frequency of leg wounds and the specific legs that were most commonly damaged. In addition, we measured walking and climbing speeds of adult C. marginalis and found that individuals with fresh injuries (lab-induced) to femur IV walked at speeds significantly slower than uninjured adults or individuals collected from the field that had fully healed wounds to a single leg. J. Morphol. 278:73-88, 2017. ©© 2016 Wiley Periodicals,Inc.
以往关于盲蛛腿部损伤的研究主要集中在那些将自割（自愿断腿）作为二级防御机制的个体的健康后果上。对于拉尼阿托盲蛛科非自割物种的腿部损伤尚未进行研究。在实验室条件下，我们损伤了边缘辛诺塔盲蛛的第四对股骨，并通过扫描电子显微镜（SEM）观察了这些伤口在十天内的变化。我们还使用SEM检查了从野外采集的三种丽蛛科盲蛛个体的腿部损伤情况。根据血淋巴凝结物外表面的变化，我们将这些伤口分为新鲜伤口（正在形成凝结物）、近期伤口（凝结物表面光滑）、陈旧伤口（凝结物呈鳞片状且可见细胞碎片）和完全愈合伤口（鳞片被末端残端上新的角质层生长所取代）。我们的观察表明，盲蛛的伤口愈合方式与其他螯肢动物类似。腿部损伤在腿部伤口的总体频率以及最常受损的特定腿部方面表现出种间差异。此外，我们测量了成年边缘辛诺塔盲蛛的行走和攀爬速度，发现第四对股骨有新鲜损伤（实验室诱导）的个体行走速度明显慢于未受伤的成年个体或从野外采集的单腿有完全愈合伤口的个体。《形态学杂志》278:73 - 88，2017年。©© 2016威利期刊公司。
