Uses
Platynereis dumerilii palps.
This species is a model organism for the lophotrochozoan group (including Phylla as Mollusca, Annelida and Trematoda).
P. dumerilii presents several advantageous features:
- It can be bred in the laboratory
- Exhibits an ancestral-type body plan
- Displays indirect development through a ciliated trochophora larva
- Produces several thousands of offspring in this singular act of spawning
(Arendt et al. 2001)
Contain more complete set of ancestral urbilaterian genes and cell types and a less complex development and morphology that can be more easily studied. Model organisms in research (especially in Developmental Biology and Ecotoxicology).