This book highlights the potential advantages of using marine invertebrates like tunicates, echinoderms, sponges and cephalopods as models in both biological and medical research. Bioactive compounds found in marine organisms possess antibacterial, antifungal, anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory properties, and can affect the immune and nervous systems. Despite substantial research on the medicinal attributes of various marine invertebrates, they are still very much underrepresented in scientific literature: the majority of cell, developmental and evolutionary scientific journals only publish research conducted on a few well-known model systems like Drosophila melanogaster or Xenopus laevis. Addressing that gap, this book introduces readers to new model organisms like starfish or nemertera. By showing their benefits with regard to regeneration, stem cell research and Evo-Devo, the authors provide a cross-sectional view encompassing various disciplines of biological research. As such, this book will not only appeal to scientists currently working on marine organisms, but will also inspire future generations to pursue research of their own.

Taxonomy and Geographic Distribution. 1. Tenagodrilus musculus g.n., sp.n., a New Genus and Species of Lumbriculidae (Clitellata) from a Temporary Pond in Alabama, USA; M. Eckroth, R.O. Brinkhurst. 2. Kathrynella, a New Oligochaete Genus from Guyana; P. Omodeo. 3. Oligochaetes (Nididae, Tubificidae, Opistocystdae, Enchytraeidae, Sparganophilidae and Alluroididae) of Guyana; D.F. Stacey, K.A. Coates. 4. Species Separation and Identification in the Enchytraeidae (Oligochaeta, Annelida): Combining Morphology and General Protein Pattern; R. Schmelz. Distribution, Abundance and Habitat Types. 5. Naidids and Other Oligochaetes of Italy; A. di Chiara Paoletti, Sambugar. 6. The Distribution of Oligochaeta on an Exposed Rocky Shore in South East Ireland; B. Healy. 7. Oligochaeta and Aphanoneura in Ancient Lakes: a Review; P. Martin. 8. Distribution Patterns of Aquatic Oligochaetes Inhabiting Watercourses in the North-Western Iberian Peninsula; E. Martinez-Ansemil, R. Collado. 9. The Influence of Water Movement on the Distribution of Oligochaetes; T.D. Slepukhina. 10. Oligochaeta of Lake Taimyr: a Preliminary Survey; T. Timm. 11. Influence of Grain Size on the Distribution of Tubificid Oligochaetes; G. Sauter, H. Gude. 12. Investigations of Oligochaete Community Structure in Different Habitats of a River Marsh Near Hamburg; R. Grimm. 13. Long-Term Changes in Oligochaete Communities in Lake Ladoga; T. Slepukhina. 14. Oligochaetes in the Southern Basin of the Venetian Lagoon: Community Composition, Species Abundance Biomass and Dispersion Pattern; S. Casellato. Population Dynamics. 15. Seasonal Dynamics of Aufwuchs Naididae (Oligochaeta) on Phragmites australis in a Eutrophic Lake; B. Lohlein. 16. Age, Stage and Size Structure as Population State Variables for Tubifex tubifex (Oligochaeta, Tubificidae); A. Pasteris, et al. 17. Oligochaete Species and their Biomass as a Source of Fish Food in Hungarian Rice Fields; A. Szito. 18. Intermediate Host Specificity of Caryophllaeus laticeps (Pallas) in Swedish Tubificid Oligochaetes and Population Dynamics of the Parasite in its Final Host the Bream, Abramis brama (L.) in Lake Malaren; G. Milbrink. 19. Energy Budget of Oligochaeta and its Connection with the Primary Production of a Reservoir; K. Jenderedjian. 20. Production and Population Dynamics of Tubifex tubifex in the Profundal Zone of a Freshwater Reservoir in N. Italy; C. Bonacina, et al. Pollution Studies. 21. Superficial and Hyporheic Communities as Indicators of Pollution and Water Exchange in the River Moselle (France); M. Lafont, et al. 22. Reversal of Eutrophication in Four Swiss Lakes; Evidence from Oligochaete Communities; C. Lang, O. Reymond. 23. A Comparison of Two Tubificid Oligochaete Species as Candidates for Sublethal Bioassay Tests Relevant to Subtropical and Tropical Regions; M. Marchese, R.O. Brinkhurst. 24. Oligochaetes in a Long Term Eutrophication Experiment; P.F.M. Verdonschot. Anthropogenic Impacts on Oligochaete Communities in the Mouth of the Neva; N.P. Finogenova. 26. Upstream and Downstream Movement of Macrofauna (with Special Referenc

This book is the fourth in a series of 4 volumes in the Handbook of Zoology series about morphology, anatomy, reproduction, development, ecology, phylogeny and systematics of Annelida. It covers the most typical polychaetes, Phyllodocida, together with certain smaller taxa placed incertae sedis. This volume completes the polychaetous Annelida. Phyllodocida are often vagile, possess well-developed parapodia. Due to their broad and flat cirri these parapodia look like leaves in some taxa and leading to the name of the entire group. Many of its members are macrophagous and often predators. Accordingly most species possess elaborate sense structures such as sensory palps, antennae, eyes and nuchal organs. In certain species the eyes comprise thousands of photoreceptor cells and lenses most likely allowing forming true images. Phyllodocida typically possess an axial muscular pharynx called proboscis functioning as a kind of suction pipe allowing them to swallow and ingest their prey or other food. This pharynx may be armed with cuticular jaws and some species even possess venom glands. The probably most popular and important polychaete model organism, Platynereis dumerilii, belongs to this interesting group. Phyllodocida fall into two to three higher clades comprising about 25 families which represent more than one fourth of the polychaete diversity. One of these families, Syllidae, comprises about 700 valid species of mainly small size and may, therefore, represent one of the most complex and somehow difficult polychaete families on Earth.

Immunologists, perhaps understandably, most often concentrate on the human immune system, an anthropocentric focus that has resulted in a dearth of information about the immune function of all other species within the animal kingdom. However, knowledge of animal immune function could help not only to better understand human immunology, but perhaps more importantly, it could help to treat and avoid the blights that affect animals, which consequently affect humans. Take for example the mass death of honeybees in recent years - their demise, resulting in much less pollination, poses a serious threat to numerous crops, and thus the food supply. There is a similar disappearance of frogs internationally, signaling ecological problems, among them fungal infections. This book aims to fill this void by describing and discussing what is known about non-human immunology. It covers various major animal phyla, its chapters organized in a progression from the simplest unicellular organisms to the most complex vertebrates, mammals. Chapters are written by experts, covering the latest findings and new research being conducted about each phylum. Edwin L. Cooper is a Distinguished Professor in the Laboratory of Comparative Immunology, Department of Neurobiology at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine.

Vertebrates and Invertebrates of European Cities: Selected Non-Avian Fauna is the first known account of the vertebrate and invertebrate fauna of several cities in Europe and throughout the rest of the world. It excludes birds, which are described in a companion volume. The book contains eleven chapters about nine cities distributed throughout Europe. The chapters start with the history of the cities, which is followed by a description of the abiotic features such as geology, climate, air and water quality and then a brief account of the habitats. The vertebrate chapters describe the fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals that are known to occur in each city together with their status and the habitats in which they occur, for example housing, industrial areas, parks, transport routes and rivers. The invertebrate chapters contain an account of the presence, status and habitats occupied by 6 - 8 of the major invertebrate groups including butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies, crickets and grasshoppers, beetles, molluscs, spiders, mites and springtails. This volume has been written and edited to be accessible to a wide range of interests and expertise including academic biologists, urban ecologists, landscape architects, planners, urban designers, undergraduates, other students and people with a general interest in natural history (especially cities) - not only in Europe but throughout the world.

This timely book revisits cryptic female choice in arthropods, gathering detailed contributions from around the world to address key behavioral, ecological and evolutionary questions. The reader will find a critical summary of major breakthroughs in taxon-oriented chapters that offer many new perspectives and cases to explore and in many cases unpublished data. Many groups of arthropods such as spiders, harvestmen, flies, moths, crickets, earwigs, beetles, eusocial insects, shrimp and crabs are discussed. Sexual selection is currently the focus of numerous and controversial theoretical and experimental studies. Selection in mating and post-mating patterns can be shaped by several different mechanisms, including sperm competition, extreme sexual conflict and cryptic female choice. Discrimination among males during or after copulation is called cryptic female choice because it occurs after intromission, the event that was formerly used as the definitive criterion of male reproductive success and is therefore usually difficult to detect and confirm. Because it sequentially follows intra- and intersexual interactions that occur before copulation, cryptic female choice has the power to alter or negate precopulatory sexual selection. However, though female roles in biasing male paternity after copulation have been proposed for a number of species distributed in many animal groups, cryptic female choice continues to be often underestimated. Furthermore, in recent years the concept of sexual conflict has been frequently misused, linking sexual selection by female choice irrevocably and exclusively with sexually antagonistic co-evolution, without exploring other alternatives. The book offers an essential source of information on how two fields, selective cooperation and individual sex interests, work together in the context of cryptic female choice in nature, using arthropods as model organisms. It is bound to spark valuable discussions among scientists working in evolutionary biology across the world, motivating new generations to unveil the astonishing secrets of sexual biology throughout the animal kingdom.

With an account of over 6.000 recent and 15.000 fossil species, phylum Bryozoa represents a quite large and important phylum of colonial filter feeders. This volume of the series Handbook of Zoology contains new findings on phylogeny, morphology and evolution that have significantly improved our knowledge and understanding of this phylum. It is a comprehensive book that will be a standard for many specialists but also newcomers to the field of bryozoology.

This book is the second volume in a series of 4 volumes in the Handbook of Zoology series treating morphology, anatomy, reproduction, development, ecology, phylogeny, systematics and taxonomy of polychaetous Annelida. In this volume a comprehensive review of a few more derived higher taxa within Sedentaria are given, namely Sabellida, Opheliida/Capitellida as well as Hrabeiellidae. The former comprise annelids possessing a body divided into two more or less distinct regions or tagmata called thorax and abdomen. Here two groups of families are united, the spioniform and sabelliform polychaetes. Especially Spionidae and Sabellidae are speciose families within this group and represent two of the largest annelid families. These animals live in various types of burrows or tubes and all possess so-called feeding palps. In one group these appendages are differentiated as grooved feeding palps, whereas in the other they may form highly elaborated circular tentacular crowns comprising a number of radioles mostly giving off numerous filamentous pinnulae. Often additionally colourful, the latter are also received the common names "feather-duster worms", "flowers of the sea", "Christmas-tree worms". Opheliida/Capitellida including five families of truly worm-like annelids without appendages represents the contrary. Their members burrow in soft bottom substrates and may be classified as non-selective deposit feeders. Molecular phylogenetic analyses have shown that Echiura or spoon worms, formerly regarded to represent a separate phylum, are members of this group. Last not least Hrabeiellidae is one out of only two families of oligochaete-like terrestrial polychaetes and for this reason received strong scientific interest.

Sponges (phylum Porifera) are known to be very rich sources for bioactive compounds, mainly secondary metabolites. Main efforts are devoted to cell- and mariculture of sponges to assure a sustainable exploitation of bioactive compounds from biological starting material. These activities are flanked by improved technologies to cultivate bacteria and fungi which are associated with the sponges. It is the hope that by elucidating the strategies of interaction between microorganisms and their host (sponge), by modern cell and molecular biological methods, a more comprehensive cultivation of the symbiotic organisms will be possible. The next step in the transfer of knowledge to biotechnological applications is the isolation, characterization and structural determination of the bioactive compounds by sophisticated chemical approaches.

Wetlands are among the world's most valuable and most threatened habitats, and in these crucially important ecosystems, the invertebrate fauna holds a focal position. Most of the biological diversity in wetlands is found within resident invertebrate assemblages, and those invertebrates are the primary trophic link between lower plants and higher vertebrates (e.g. amphibians, fish, and birds). As such, most scientists, managers, consultants, and students who work in the world's wetlands should become better informed about the invertebrate components in their habitats of interest. Our book serves to fill this need by assembling the world's most prominent ecologists working on freshwater wetland invertebrates, and having them provide authoritative perspectives on each the world's most important freshwater wetland types. The initial chapter of the book provides a primer on freshwater wetland invertebrates, including how they are uniquely adapted for life in wetland environments and how they contribute to important ecological functions in wetland ecosystems. The next 15 chapters deal with invertebrates in the major wetlands across the globe (rock pools, alpine ponds, temperate temporary ponds, Mediterranean temporary ponds, turloughs, peatlands, permanent marshes, Great Lakes marshes, Everglades, springs, beaver ponds, temperate floodplains, neotropical floodplains, created wetlands, waterfowl marshes), each chapter written by groups of prominent scientists intimately knowledgeable about the individual wetland types. Each chapter reviews the relevant literature, provides a synthesis of the most important ecological controls on the resident invertebrate fauna, and highlights important conservation concerns. The final chapter synthesizes the 15 habitat-based chapters, providing a macroscopic perspective on natural variation of invertebrate assemblage structure across the world's wetlands and a paradigm for understanding how global variation and environmental factors shape wetland invertebrate communities.

Containing proceedings of the VIIIth International Rotifer Symposium which was held in Collegeville, Minnesota, USA, on June 22-27 1997, this volume includes review papers and reports of recent research findings along with the presentation of new methods in rotifer biology. The publications contained in this volume reflect the wide diversity of approaches, methods of analysis and conclusions that characterize research on the Rotifera. Some of the topics addressed are: rotifer distribution, responses to biotic and abiotic factors, genetic profile of individuals and populations, rotifer feeding and mating behavior, morphology, phylogeny and taxonomy.

This book is devoted to the welfare of invertebrates, which make up 99% of animal species on earth. Addressing animal welfare, we do not often think of invertebrates; in fact we seldom consider them to be deserving of welfare evaluation. And yet we should. Welfare is a broad concern for any animal that we house, control or utilize - and we utilize invertebrates a lot. The Authors start with an emphasis on the values of non-vertebrate animals and discuss the need for a book on the present topic. The following chapters focus on specific taxa, tackling questions that are most appropriate to each one. What is pain in crustaceans, and how might we prevent it? How do we ensure that octopuses are not bored? What do bees need to thrive, pollinate our plants and give us honey? Since invertebrates have distinct personalities and some social animals have group personalities, how do we consider this? And, as in the European Union's application of welfare consideration to cephalopods, how do the practical regulatory issues play out? We have previously relegated invertebrates to the category 'things' and did not worry about their treatment. New research suggest that some invertebrates such as cephalopods and crustaceans can have pain and suffering, might also have consciousness and awareness. Also, good welfare is going to mean different things to spiders, bees, corals, etc. This book is taking animal welfare in a very different direction. Academics and students of animal welfare science, those who keep invertebrates for scientific research or in service to the goals of humans, as well as philosophers will find this work thought-provoking, instructive and informative.

The book brings to light the most recent findings on the biogeography, biodiversity, host plant induction and natural history of gall inducing insects in the Neotropical region.We attempt to summarize the work done so far in the region, promote several syntheses on many aspects such as host induction, host specialization, distribution among the several vegetation types and zones, the origin of super hosts and the mechanisms leading to geographical patterns in their distribution.Furthermore, the book constructs new perspectives for deeper understanding of galling insect evolutionary ecology and biogeopgraphy in the region."

Jellyfish', a group that includes scyphomedusae, hydromedusae, siphonophores and ctenophores, are important zooplankton predators throughout the world's estuaries and oceans. These beautiful creatures have come to public attention as featured exhibits in aquaria and in news headlines as invaders and as providers of genes used in biomedical research. Nevertheless, jellyfish are generally considered to be nuisances because they interfere with human activities by stinging swimmers, clogging power plant intakes and nets of fishermen and fish farms, and competing with fish and eating fish eggs and larvae. There is concern that environmental changes such as global warming, eutrophication, and over-fishing may result in increased jellyfish populations. The literature reviews and research papers in this volume explore the interactions between jellyfish and humans. Papers cover the medical aspects of jellyfish stings, jellyfish as human food and jellyfish fisheries, interactions of jellyfish and fish, effects of environmental changes on jellyfish, effects of introduced ctenophores on the Black Sea ecosystem, factors causing increases or concentrations of jellyfish, and others aspects of jellyfish ecology. This is an important reference for students and professional marine biologists, oceanographers, fishery scientists, and aquarists.