Reverse genetics and next‐generation sequencing unlocked a new era in biology. It is now
possible to identify an animal (s) with the unique biology most relevant to a particular …

Cnidarians are widely regarded as one of the first organisms in animal evolution possessing
a nervous system. Conventional histological and electrophysiological studies have revealed …

Soft-bodied slow-moving sea creatures such as sea stars and sea cucumbers lack an
adaptive immune system and have instead evolved the ability to make specialized protective …

Evolutionary change in morphological features must depend on architectural reorganization
of developmental gene regulatory networks (GRNs), just as true conservation of …

The extensive array of morphological diversity among animal taxa represents the product of
millions of years of evolution. Morphology is the output of development, therefore phenotypic …

Sea stars and sea urchins evolved from a last common ancestor that lived at the end of the
Cambrian, approximately half a billion years ago. In a previous comparative study of the …

Cell types are the building blocks of metazoan biodiversity and offer a powerful perspective
for inferring evolutionary phenomena. With the development of single-cell transcriptomic …

Echinoderms are a phylum of invertebrate deuterostomes that are morphologically
characterized by a fivefold (pentameric) symmetric adult body plan. There are five extant …

Background Metazoan lineages exhibit a wide range of regenerative capabilities that vary
among developmental stage and tissue type. The most robust regenerative abilities are …

Background The mechanisms by which the conserved genetic “toolkit” for development
generates phenotypic disparity across metazoans is poorly understood. Echinoderm larvae …