bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/439497; this version posted October 11, 2018. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC 4.0 International license. A phylum-wide survey reveals multiple independent gains of head regeneration ability in Nemertea Eduardo E. Zattara1,2,5, Fernando A. Fernández-Álvarez3, Terra C. Hiebert4, Alexandra E. Bely2 and Jon L. Norenburg1 1 Department of Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA 2 Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA 3 Institut de Ciències del Mar, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Barcelona, Spain 4 Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA 5 INIBIOMA, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas, Bariloche, RN, Argentina Corresponding author: E.E. Zattara,
[email protected] Abstract Animals vary widely in their ability to regenerate, suggesting that regenerative abilities have a rich evolutionary history. However, our understanding of this history remains limited because regeneration ability has only been evaluated in a tiny fraction of species. Available comparative regeneration studies have identified losses of regenerative ability, yet clear documentation of gains is lacking. We surveyed regenerative ability in 34 species spanning the phylum Nemertea, assessing the ability to regenerate heads and tails either through our own experiments or from literature reports. Our sampling included representatives of the 10 most diverse families and all three orders comprising this phylum.