Caenorhabditis remanei is a species of nematode

Nematode

The nematodes or roundworms are the most diverse phylum of pseudocoelomates, and one of the most diverse of all animals. Nematode species are very difficult to distinguish; over 28,000 have been described, of which over 16,000 are parasitic. It has been estimated that the total number of nematode...

 that has been found in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, and likely lives throughout the temperate world. Several strains have been developed in the laboratory.

Habitat

This nematode lives in soil

Soil

Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...

, compost

Compost

Compost is organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. Compost is a key ingredient in organic farming. At its most essential, the process of composting requires simply piling up waste outdoors and waiting for the materials to break down from anywhere...

, and similar materials, where it consumes bacteria

Bacteria

Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...

. It may be found in association with soil-living invertebrates such as snail

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

s, slug

Slug

Slug is a common name that is normally applied to any gastropod mollusc that lacks a shell, has a very reduced shell, or has a small internal shell...

s, and pill bugs

Armadillidiidae

Armadillidiidae is a family of woodlice, a terrestrial crustacean group in the order Isopoda. Unlike members of other woodlouse families, members of this family can roll into a ball, an ability they share with the outwardly similar but unrelated pill millipedes and other animals...

. It lives with the snail Fruticicola sieboldiana in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. It has been associated with the isopods Trachelipus rathkii, Armadillidium nasatum, Cylisticus convexus, and Porcellio scaber

Porcellio scaber

Porcellio scaber , is a species of European woodlouse.-Distribution:...

in Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

.

Genetics

The genome

Genome

In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....

 of this nematode has been sequenced, and it was found to contain about 26,000 gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

s.

Mating and reproduction

Unlike many other Caenorhabditis, which are hermaphrodite

Hermaphrodite

In biology, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes.Many taxonomic groups of animals do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which both...

, C. remanei have both males and females.
The male of this species employs a mating plug

Mating plug

right|thumbnail|A mating plug in a female [[Richardson's ground squirrel]] A mating plug, also known as a copulation plug, sperm plug, vaginal plug, or sphragis, is gelatinous secretion used in the mating of some species. It is deposited by a male into a female genital tract and later hardens into...

. This species can hybridize with Caenorhabditis brenneri

Caenorhabditis brenneri

Caenorhabditis brenneri is a small nematode, closely related to the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans and to other species in the same genus. Its genome is being sequenced by Washington University in St. Louis Genome Sequencing Center . This species has previously been referred to as C. sp 4...

, but only when C. remanei males mate with C. brenneri females, and then the offspring are apparently sterile.

External links

• C. remanei Genome Sequencing.