Hello All,

At TONMOCon, Dr. Gilly and I had a few moments to discuss ammoniaism in squid and about the lifestyle of Dosidicus gigas and possible oxygenation issues. What I am wondering is how much research has been done on how deep water squid and octos survive hypoxic conditions. I know that their metabolism is low, and that the overall O2 affinity of hemocyanin is low, but what about overall respiratory efficiency? Does cutaneous respiration occur in the mantle or anywhere else? What about the use of CO2 "Carbon Sinks", to handle CO2 buildup? In what way does cephalopod tissue deal with CO2 buildup (analogous to the mammalian use of lactic acid)?

Just asking questions,

John

Beaks maybe? They eat enough calcium...(fish skeletons). :confused:

Don't quote me on this, but I think the beaks are keratinous. I think for the most part, Cacium fixation has serious issues at deep water temperature and pressure. I know that deep water arthropods use keratin and tannins for exoskeleton formation, so I don't think it would be the beak even if the beak was calcareous. But that's a rippin good guess.

Then again, I might be wrong.

Sushi and Ramune (no sake for you - you're too young! :wink: )

John

Well, if you know how the arthropods in those envornments do it, the squid probably do it the same way! Or are there no arthopods in the great anoxic? :razz:

The paper that first sprang to mind is one I used for the Deep Sea Cephs article:

Seibel B.A., Thuesen E.V., Childress J.J. and L.A. Gorodezky 1997. Decline in pelagic cephalopod metabolism with habitat depth reflects differences in locomotory efficiency. Biological Bulletin. 192 (2):262-278.

...which CephBase conveniently has as a pdf here (
http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/refdb/pdf/7723.pdf). Also if you do a search on the keyword 'metabolism' on CephBase, you get about 28 refs, some of which deal with oxygen demand and consumption.

:snorkel:

LOL... I have that paper right here in front of me! :lol:

Thanks. I should also check out A. Packards famous 1972 paper on Fish-Ceph convergence.

Allow me to read the article a few more times, then I'll get back to you on that, with an intelligent reply(i.e. It's got BIG words, and it's long.:razz:(i.e. I haven't finished reading yet!)). :wink: