Organism
Water Flea
TL;DR
Water fleas are mentioned in comparison to fruit flies to illustrate how the same Hox gene toolkit produces different body plans through differential expression.
Water fleas are mentioned in comparison to fruit flies to illustrate how the same Hox gene toolkit produces different body plans through differential expression. While fruit flies have wings on one segment and legs on multiple segments, water fleas have many repeated leg-bearing segments - a difference largely reflecting Hox gene expression patterns rather than different genetic content.
Notable Traits of Water Flea
- Many repeated leg-bearing segments
- Hox gene expression variation
- Inducible defenses
- Predator chemical detection
- Within-generation adaptation
- 50-80% predation reduction with defenses