The marine worm <i>Capitella teleta</i> is sensitive to neurochemical manipulation, as revealed via a novel high-throughput behavioural tool
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Anthropogenic impacts have led to increases in contaminants in marine habitats. The presence of compounds such as pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and pesticides is a concern, as these compounds have been shown to act as neurochemicals in aquatic organisms. However, screens of the multitude of chemicals found environmentally have yet to be carried out. Capitella teleta are marine annelid polychaete worms that live in the sediment of estuarian environments, acting as ecosystem engineers for marine habitats. This study aimed to develop a behaviour tool to identify neurochemical pathways involved in controlling locomotion that could be applied to screen the impacts of toxicants in the environment using this key invertebrate species at multiple life stages. Adult and juvenile life stages (2 weeks post-emergence) of Capitella teleta were observed in Petri dishes (adults only) or 6-well plates (adults and juveniles), and conserved behavioural responses were isolated, such as their velocity, distance travelled, the time to reach the edge of the arena, and time spent at the periphery. We exposed juvenile and adult worms to nicotine (acetylcholine agonist) as a proof of concept. We noted similar disruptions to locomotion at both life stages, with low doses of nicotine stimulating movement and higher doses reducing locomotion. From here, we exposed juvenile worms to fluoxetine (serotonin reuptake inhibitor), phenobarbital (GABA agonist), and apomorphine (dopamine agonist). The behaviour of juvenile worms can be altered by exposure to fluoxetine, phenobarbital, and apomorphine. Fluoxetine and phenobarbital exposure reduces movement at high doses, but fluoxetine influences the amount of time at the periphery of the arena. Apomorphine produced modest changes in locomotion compared to other chemicals tested. Genome searching, as well as transcriptomics, were used to confirm the presence of neurochemical pathways in Capitella teleta . Our results demonstrate that Capitella teleta is a viable model for behavioural work, that several neurochemical pathways contribute to locomotory behaviour, and that this assay may be useful as a screen for contaminants found in marine habitats.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".