The 1983-1984 mass mortality of Diadema antillarum produced severe damages on Caribbean reefs contributing to substantial changes in community structure that still persist. Despite the importance of Diadema grazing in structuring coral reefs, available information on current abundances and algal-urchin interactions in Cuba is scarce. We analyzed spatial variations in Diadema abundance and its i...

Antarctic marine benthic invertebrates are an underexplored source of natural products for biodiscovery. Bioactive from Antarctica reviewed here their potential use as drugs, considering the main examples in Porifera (15 species), Cnidaria (eight Mollusca (one Bryozoa Nemertea Echinodermata (six and Tunicata (five species). A wide variety bioactivities reported here, antitumoral to antimicrobia...

Hemichordates were traditionally allied to the chordates, but recent molecular analyses have suggested that hemichordates are a sister group to the echinoderms, a relationship that has important consequences for the interpretation of the evolution of deuterostome body plans. However, the molecular phylogenetic analyses to date have not provided robust support for the hemichordate + echinoderm c...

The case put by Alexey Smirnov in 2012 is accepted and the order name Synaptida Cuénot is adopted in place of Apodida Brandt. Two new Myriotrochidae Théel species from the continental slope of Australia are described: Prototrochus robbinsae sp. nov. and Prototrochus roniae sp. nov.  A key to the six Australasian species of Prototrochus Beljaev & Mironov and a distribution and depth map are prov...

BACKGROUND The Register of Antarctic Marine Species (RAMS, De Broyer et al. 2015) is the regional component of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS Editorial Board 2015) in the Southern Ocean. It has been operating for the last ten years, with a special effort devoted towards its completion after the International Polar Year (IPY) in 2007-2008, in the framework of the Census of Antarctic...

In Figure six (Figure 1 here) of the original manuscript [1] panels B-H are representative images from which measurements were taken and then graphed in Figure six panel I. In the original submission of the manuscript panel C and H ended up showing identical images. We corrected this error by replacing panel C with the correct representative image. Note that this error occurred when preparing t...

Early embryogenesis has been examined experimentally in several echinoderm and hemichordate classes. Although these studies suggest that the mechanisms which underlie regional specification have been highly conserved within the echinoderm + hemichordate clade, nothing is known about these mechanisms in several other echinoderm classes, including the Ophiuroidea. In this study, early embryogenes...

Examination of a large collection of echinothurioid echinoids from museum collections in New Zealand and Australia revealed six new species in the genus Araeosoma (A. bidentatum sp. nov., A. migratum sp. nov., A. anatirostrum sp. nov., A. tertii sp. nov., A. leppienae sp. nov., and A. bakeri sp. nov.) and one in the genus Hapalosoma (H. amynina sp. nov.), while the recorded presence of A. coria...

The longitudinal muscle of the body wall of Isostichopus badionotus may be considered a model for excitation-contraction coupling in echinoderm muscle. Other echinoderm muscles are reviewed by comparison with the model. Echinoderm muscle is also of interest as a model for 'mutable collagenous tissue'; however, in that tissue, Ca(2+) has been proposed to function both in living control systems a...