Learning to glue underwater: Inspiration from the decorator worm

Abstract

The decorator worm, a sedentary predator, builds a micro-reef on the portion of its tube above the sediment, which attracts prey. When tube tops are clipped in the lab, the worm rebuilds compulsively. Glass beads and antifouling materials were used as decoration substrates to characterize bioadhesive biochemistry and adhesion to antifouling substrate. Decorator worm adhesive was largely proteinaceous with phosphate presence and a lack of glycoprotein. The Introduction explains the scientific context for studying natural underwater adhesives, including efforts to understand conserved molecular mechanisms in underwater adhesion to further fouling prevention on boat hulls or medical implants and biomimicking natural glues for industrial or biomedical applications. The Methods provides detailed steps to test decorator worm adhesive for protein, phosphoprotein, and glycoprotein presence. This section also provides details on how to make worms decorate with antifouling substrates. The Results section shows that decorator worm bioadhesive is highly proteinaceous and has higher phosphate presence in the tube as compared to glue on glass beads. The adhesive did not contain significant glycoprotein. The decorator worm adheres mixed ion exchange resin, synthetic ion exchange resin, strongly basic anion exchange resin, aminopropyl silane modified glass particles (.5-10 μm), imitation seagrass, plastic zip ties, iPhone cases, silicone, silicone infused with octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4) and silicone infused with decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) to its tube. This report details findings on the decorator worm as a novel system for studying adhesive and antifouling materials: • Adhesive shows high protein content • Tube adhesive shows higher phosphoprotein than adhesive on glass beads • Adhesive shows little to no glycoprotein presence • Decorator worms adheres all materials tested to their tubes • Decorator worms relatively large size and readiness to adhere any material to the exterior tubes make them excellent candidates to testing antifoul release materials