Echinodermata: Echinoidea
Abstract
Members of the approximately 900 species of echinoids are found on the floor of all seas, often in large numbers. Sea urchins dot coastal rocks, sometimes causing considerable bioerosion, and heart urchins and sand dollars form extensive beds in offshore sands and muds. Many sea urchins are important herbivores (Lawrence, 1975; Lawrence and Sammarco, 1982; Harrold and Pearse, 1987), while others are omnivores or feed on detritus and debris. Moreover, echinoids have a long and rich fossil record, so that their evolutionary history is relatively well known. Mortensen's (1928-1951) monographic treatment of echinoids is among the most complete ever given to a large group of marine invertebrates. Smith (1984) and others built upon the accumulated knowledge of living and fossil echinoids to formulate cladistic analyses of the group. General accounts of echinoids are found in Hyman (1955), Harvey (1956a), Moore (1966), Nichols (1969), Smith (1984), Kier (1987), Lawrence (1987), and V.B. Pearse et al. (1987). Much of the earlier literature on reproduction of echinoids is summarized by Hyman (1955) and Boolootian (1966); additional references up to 1965 are given by Holland and Holland (1969a), and Lawrence (1987) reviewed aspects of hermaphroditism and brooding.
Additional Information
© 1991 Boxwood Press. This review has benefited enormously by critical reading and discussion of parts of it by Enrique Bay-Schmith, Eric Davidson, Nicholas Holland, Vicki Pearse, and Scott Smiley. We are also indebted to Julian Fell for a copy of his unpublished thesis, to Rudolf Raff for sending preprints of some of his papers, and to Karen Morgan for executing some of the figures. The review was written and rewritten over a long period in a variety of localities. In addition to the library facilities of our home institutions, we enjoyed the use of those at Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University, Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory of Woods Hole, Bermuda Biological Station, Barnfield Marine Station, University of Guam, James Cook University of North Queensland, and Seto Marine Biological Laboratory of Kyoto University. We are indebted to the staff of all these institutions for gracious assistance. We thank Eric Davidson for support of R.A.C. during final manuscript preparation; the original research by R.A.C. mentioned in Section 7.4, and by J .S.P. and I. Bosch shown in Fig. 10, was funded by the National Science Foundation.Additional details
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- CaltechAUTHORS:20121101-135126983
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2012-11-27Created from EPrint's datestamp field
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2019-10-03Created from EPrint's last_modified field