Echinoderms

What are Sea cucumbers? Like Starfish and sea urchins, Sea cucumbers are echinoderms. These marine animals are shaped like soft cucumbers hence the name. The common Sea cucumber habitat is the ocean floor. They are sometimes found in shallow water but most of them are found partially buried by the ocean floor. The sea cucumber habitat helps it blend with the coral reefs and enable it to successfully feed on algae Plankton and decaying organic matter. There are approximately 1,700 known species of sea cucumbers and most of them are found in the Asia Pacific region. Most are harvested for human consumption especially in Chinese cuisine called Hoisam and they are also believed to have health and medicinal benefits. Where does the sea cucumber…

Briana Stubbins August 7, 2016 Oce 1001 Mrs. Frey Starfish Star Fish are beautiful creature. They are found mostly in our North-East Atlantic. Although they are beautiful creatures and unique, there are interesting facts about the beautiful star fish. The scientific name for a Starfish is common starfish or common sea star. The class that the starfish is a part of is the Asteroidea. The order is a part of the Forcipulatida and the family is a part of the Asteriidae. Some starfish live in the…

Once again we have echinoderms. Echinoderms are absolutely exclusive to the ocean and have no fresh-water or terrestrial based representatives. As for a possible reason why they are exclusive to marine habitats I would theorize that simply nothing of their relatives ever adapted towards land. Based on the theory that all life probably began deep within the ocean, even what life is now on land has ancient origins from the ocean. Though despite this there are still exclusive marine species because…

During the laral stage, echinoderms display bilateral symmetry. During the adult stage and juvenile stage, they display radial symmetry (body can be divided along central axis). Echinoderms are also triploblastic and coelomate. Instead of being protostomes, the blastopore develop into the anuss, making them deuterostomes. Classes in this phylum are characterized by their arrangement of ossicles, which are hard calcium plates. Part of the body cavity transforms into a water vascular system, a…

Characteristics of this Group While Echinoderms may not have a backbone, they are still classified as deuterostomes. When classifying species scientists look at DNA similarities and found that Echinoderms were more closely related to Deuterostomes than Bilaterians. Echinoderms and deuterostomes both share a mode of development such as radial cleavage and formation of the anus from the blastopore (Reece, et al., 2011). If you have ever viewed a starfish you would have noticed bumps all along the…

done as well by using its hydraulic system found in its limbs which takes in water from the surface the starfish would like to adhere to, creating a sealed suction, and releasing the water taken in to become unattached (Starfish). The starfish also uses its tube feet for moving around (Echinoderms). These differentiable characteristics are an advantage to each specific organism however aren’t necessarily characteristics which could be said would be an advantage for every organism to have. Having…

Larval brittle stars are highly sensitive to reduced pH levels. Adults of the brittle star A. filiformis species were collected at a 25–40-m depth between July and August 2011 and showed that the creature experiences high mortality rates when in decreased pH waters (Chan 956). The lineage of larval urchins is affected by the release of buds. This is because of the increase in larval density causing the release of buds to result in higher larval mortality rates. Also, larval urchins go under…

The last example is a cay. Cays are low, sandy islands located on the surface of coral reefs. They develop when the material collects in the lagoon or on the reef, which then forms land above sea level. Coral reefs are home to a vague species and types of animals. The types of animals that coral reefs shelter are fish, echinoderms, and mollusks. Fish makes up a huge amount of animals living in coral reefs. Wrasses are a common type of fish in the coral reef. Fish species include: angelfish,…

Question 1 1.1) Hemichordates share some characters with echinoderms and chordates. Pharyngeal slits they share with chordates. Hemichordates are the sister taxon to echinoderms as described by Ambulacraria hypothesis, then gill slits are an ancestral feature for deuterostomes. These gill slits are supposedly lost in in lineage but some researchers have found evidence for gill slits in extinct carpoid echinoderms. The Ambulacraria hypothesis unites echinoderms and hemichordates on the basis of a…

that organisms reproduce in the water and starfish would fall under this category. This type of spawning is where eggs and sperm are released into the water and reproduction is done sexually and externally. A lot of organisms actually spawn during different times of the wear and can correlation to the moon cycle. 31) What is larval dispersal? -The movement of the larvae from the area where it is actually dispersed to wherever it ends up settling. The first area is called the dispersal site and…