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Comparative Analysis of the Anatomy of the Myxinoidea and the Ancestry of Early Vertebrate Lineages
DownloadFall 2012
The question of whether a hagfish is a true vertebrate or not has profound implications about the ancestry of the clade. New anatomical evidence allows a test of their systematic position. With dissections and serial sections of original specimens, and with a literature review, a comparative...
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Development, Anatomy, and Phylogenetic Relationships of Jawless Vertebrates and Tests of Hypotheses about Early Vertebrate Evolution
DownloadSpring 2018
The origin and early evolution of vertebrates remain one of the central questions of comparative biology. This clade, which features a breathtaking diversity of complex forms, has generated profound, unresolved questions, including: How are major lineages of vertebrates related to one another?...
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Fall 2011
One important source of phenotypic variation on which natural selection can act is developmental plasticity (the capacity of a single genotype to produce different environment-dependent forms). Therefore, studies of how the environment influences development can facilitate our understanding of...
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New insights about barnacle reproduction: Spermcast mating, aerial copulation and population genetic consequences
DownloadSpring 2014
Barnacles are mostly hermaphroditic and they are believed to mate via copulation or, in a few species, by self-fertilization. However, isolated individuals of two species that are thought not to self-fertilize, Pollicipes polymerus and Balanus glandula, nonetheless carried fertilized...
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Fall 2018
A full understanding of the evolution of novel forms requires inference about their origins through the study of variation in extant taxa and clues from the fossil record. However, the origins of morphological diversity in many groups are obscured by the scarcity of transitional fossils or...
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Plastic phenotypic responses of the sea star Pisaster ochraceus to spatial and temporal variation in wave exposure
DownloadFall 2011
The intertidal sea star Pisaster ochraceus lives in a wide range of wave-exposure conditions in the northeastern Pacific. Its body form and tube foot tenacity are both highly correlated with wave exposure. On wave-exposed shores sea stars attach to the substrate with higher tenacity, weigh...
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Selective cnida sequestration in the aeolid nudibranch Hermissenda crassicornis: ecology and mechanism of defense acquisition
DownloadFall 2014
The aeolid nudibranch Hermissenda crassicornis (Eschscholtz, 1831) (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Opisthobranchia, Cladobranchia) belongs to a special group of shell-less gastropods that sequester cnidae stolen from cnidarian prey in their cerata (dorsal papillae). Cnidarians produce over 30...