بنك الاسئلة EPS 1ST 2011 231


2. What is the difference between?

a. Brachiopod and Bivalve.

b. Graptolite and Anthozoa (coral)

 

Model Answer

 

 

a. Brachiopod and Bivalve.

Brachiopods are a phylum of marine animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and lower surfaces. Most species of brachiopod went extinct during the P–T extinction over 250 million years ago, but many survive today.

Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear end, while the front can be opened for feeding or closed for protection. Articulate brachiopods have toothed hinges and simple opening and closing muscles, while inarticulate brachiopods have untoothed hinges and more complex muscles. In a typical brachiopod a stalk-like pedicle projects from an opening in the hinge or from a hole in the larger valve, attaching the animal to the sea bed but clear of silt that would obstruct the opening.

Brachiopods have a mantle that secretes and lines the shell, and encloses the internal organs. The body occupies typically about one-third of the internal space inside the shell, nearest the hinge. The rest of the mantle encloses a water-filled space containing the lophophore, a crown of tentacles that filters food particles out of the water. In all species the lophophore is supported by cartilage and by a hydrostatic skeleton.

The lophophore filters food, mostly phytoplankton, out of the water. From there the food is transported in succession to: the grooves along the bases of the lophophore's tentacles; the mouth; pharynx; oesophagus; and finally the stomach, where the food is digested. Nutrients are transported from the stomach throughout the coelom (main body cavity), including the mantle lobes, by cilia. The wastes produced by metabolism are broken into ammonia, which is eliminated by diffusion through the mantle and lophophore.

The lophophore and mantle are the only surfaces that absorb oxygen and eliminate carbon dioxide. Oxygen seems to be distributed by the fluid of the coelom. The heart is above the stomach, and the blood vessels connect it to the major organs. However, the main function of the blood may be to deliver nutrients. The maximum oxygen consumption of brachiopods is low, and their minimum requirement is not measurable.

The "brain" of adult articulates consists of two ganglia, one above and the other below the oesophagus. Adult inarticulates have only the lower ganglion. Nerves run to the lophophore, the mantle lobes and the muscles that operate the valves. Many brachiopods close their valves if shadows appear above them, but the cells responsible for this are unknown. Some brachiopods have statocysts which detect changes in the animals' balance.

Lifespans range from 3 to over 30 years. Ripe gametes (ova or sperm) float from the gonads into the main coelom and then exit into the mantle cavity. The larvae of inarticulate brachiopods are miniature adults, with lophophores that enable the larvae to feed and swim for months, until the animals become heavy enough to settle to the seabed. Larvae of articulate species are different from the adult forms, live only on yolk, and remain among the plankton for only a few days before metamorphosing.

The traditional classification into inarticulate and articulate brachiopods has been supplemented by two refinements that appeared in the 1990s. One refinement groups the inarticulate Craniida with articulate brachiopods, as both used the same material in the mineral layers of the shell. The other segregates the Craniida into a third group, as their outer organic layer is different from that of either the others. However, some taxonomists believe it is premature to define the higher levels of classification such as order, and recommend instead a bottom-up approach that identifies genera and then groups these into intermediate groups. Traditionally brachiopods have been regarded as members of or as a sister group to the deuterostomes, a super-phylum which includes chordates and echinoderms. One type of analysis of brachiopods' evolutionary relationships has always placed brachiopods as protostomes, while another type has split between placing brachiopods among the protostomes or the deuterostomes.

In 2003 it was suggested that brachiopods evolved from an ancestor similar to Halkieria, a slug-like animal with "chain mail" on its back and a shell at the front and rear end, and that the ancestral brachiopod converted its shells into a pair of valves by folding the rear part of its body under its front. However, new fossils found in 2007 to 2008 suggest that brachiopods evolved from tommotiids: the tommotiids' "chain mail" formed the tube of a sessile animal resembling brachiopods. Lineages that have both fossil and extant brachiopods appeared in the early Cambrian, Ordovician and Carboniferous periods. Other lineages have arisen and then become extinct, sometimes during severe mass extinctions. At their peak in the Paleozoic era the brachiopods were among the most abundant filter-feeders and reef-builders, and occupied other ecological niches, including swimming in the jet-propulsion style of scallops. Brachiopod fossils have been useful indicators of climate changes during the Paleozoic era. However, after the Permian–Triassic extinction event, brachiopods recovered only a third of their former diversity. A study in 2007 concluded that brachiopods were especially vulnerable to the Permian–Triassic extinction, as they built calcareous hard parts (made of calcium carbonate) and had low metabolic rates and weak respiratory systems. It was often thought that brachiopods were in decline after the Permian–Triassic extinction, and were out-competed by bivalves. However, a study in 1980 concluded that both brachiopods and bivalves increased all the way from the Paleozoic to modern times, but bivalves increased faster; after the Permian–Triassic extinction, brachiopods for the first time were less diverse than bivalves.

Brachiopods live only in the sea, and most species avoid locations with strong currents or waves. Articulate species have larvae that settle quickly and form dense populations in well-defined areas, while inarticulate larvae swim for up to a month and have wide ranges. Brachiopods now live mainly in cold and low-light conditions. Fish and crustaceans seem to find brachiopod flesh distasteful and seldom attack them. Among brachiopods only the lingulids have been fished commercially, on a very small scale. One brachiopod species may be a measure of environmental conditions around an oil terminal being built in Russia on the shore of the Sea of Japan.

The fossil brachiopod genera have great diversity but only a few skeletal characteristics, while the modern genera have much lower diversity but provide soft-bodied characteristics as well as skeletal ones – and both sets of specimens have limitations that make it difficult to produce a comprehensive classification of brachiopods. The phylum also has experienced significant convergent evolution and reversals (in which a more recent group seems to have lost a characteristic that is seen in an intermediate group, reverting to a characteristic last seen in an older group). Hence some brachiopod taxonomists believe it is premature to define higher levels of classification such as order, and recommend instead a bottom-up approach that identifies genera and then groups these into intermediate groups.[19]

However, other taxonomists believe that some patterns of characteristics are sufficiently stable to make higher-level classifications worthwhile, although there are different views about what the higher-level classifications should be.[19] The "traditional" classification was defined in 1869;[20] two further approaches were established in the 1990s:[6]

  • In the "traditional" classification, the Articulata have toothed hinges between the valves, while the hinges of the Inarticulata are held together only by muscles.[4][6]
  • A classification devised in the 1990s, based on the materials of which the shells are based, united the Craniida and the "articulate" brachiopods in the Calciata, which have calcite shells. The Lingulida and Discinida, combined in the Lingulata, have shells made of chitin and calcium phosphate.[6]
  • A three-part scheme, also from the 1990s, places the Craniida in a separate group of its own, the Craniformea. The Lingulida and Discinida are grouped as Linguliformea, and the Rhynchonellida and Terebratulida as Rhynchonelliformea.[21][22]

Bivalvia is a class of marine and freshwater mollusks known for some time as Pelecypoda, but now commonly referred to simply as bivalves. As with Gastropoda and Cephalopoda, the term Pelecypoda is in reference to the animal itself while Bivalvia simply describes the shell. Other names for the class include Acephala, Bivalva, and Lamellibranchia. The total number of bivalves currenty amounts to 9,200 species in 1,260 genera and 106 families. The global marine bivalves (including brackish water and estuarine species) contain about 8,000 species, combined in 4 subclasses and 99 families with 1,100 genera. The largest recent families are Veneridae with more than 680 species or Tellinidae and Lucinidae with over 500 species. The freshwater bivalves have 7 additional families, of which the Unionidae contain about 700 species [3].

Bivalves have a shell consisting of two asymmetrically rounded halves called valves that are mirror images of each other, joined at one edge by a flexible ligament called the hinge. The shell is typically bilaterally symmetrical, with the hinge lying in the sagittal plane. Recent Bivalves cover a large range of shell sizes from 0.52 mm in Condylonucula maya to 1,532 mm in Kuphus polythalamia

Bivalves are unique among the molluscs, having lost their odontophore and radula in their transition to filter feeding.

Some bivalves are epifaunal; they attach to surfaces. Others are infaunal; they bury themselves in sediment. These forms typically have a strong digging foot. Some bivalves such as scallops can swim.

The term bivalve is derived from the Latin bis, meaning 'two', and valvae, meaning leaves of a door[4] Other bivalved animals include brachiopods, ostracodes, and conchostrachans

Taxonomy

No consensus exists on bivalve phylogeny. Many conflicts exist due to taxonomies based on single organ systems and conflicting naming schemes. More recent taxonomies use multiple organ systems, fossil records, as well as molecular phylogenetics to draw more robust phylogenies. Due to the numerous fossil lineages, DNA sequence data is of limited use should the subclasses turn out to be paraphyletic.

In his 1935 work Handbuch der systematischen Weichtierkunde (Handbook of Systematic Malacology), Johannes Thiele introduced a mollusc taxonomy based upon the 1909 work by Cossmann and Peyrot. Thiele's system divided the bivalves into three orders:

  • Taxodonta – taxodont dentition
  • Anisomyaria – either a single adductor muscle or one adductor muscle much larger than the other
  • Eulamellibranchiata – all forms with lamellibranch ctenidia

The last was divided into four sub-orders: Schizodonta, Heterodonta, Adapedonta and Anomalodesmata.[5][6]

The systematic layout presented here follows Norman D. Newell's 1965 classification based on hinge tooth morphology:[7]

Anthozoa is a class within the phylum Cnidaria that contains the sea anemones and corals. Unlike other cnidarians, anthozoans do not have a medusa stage in their development. Instead, they release sperm and eggs that form a planula, which attaches to some substrate on which the cnidarian grows. Some anthozoans can also reproduce asexually through budding.

Biology and anatomy

Like those of other cnidarians, the individual polyps have a cylindrical body crowned by a ring of tentacles surrounding the mouth. The mouth leads into a tubular pharynx which descends for some distance into the body before opening into the gastrovascular cavity that fills the interior of the body and tentacles. Unlike other cnidarians, however, the cavity is subdivided by a number of radiating partitions, or mesenteries. The gonads are also located within the cavity walls.[1]

All cnidarian species can feed by catching prey with nematocysts; sea anemones are capable of catching fish and corals of catching plankton. Some of the species also harbour a type of algae, dinoflagellates called zooxanthellae, in a symbiotic relationship; the reef building corals known as hermatypic corals rely on this symbiotic relationship particularly. The zooxanthellae benefit by using nitrogenous waste and carbon dioxide produced by the host or , and the cnidarian gains photosynthetic capability and increased calcium carbonate production in hermatypic corals.[2]

Anemones and certain species of coral live in isolation, however most corals form colonies of genetically identical polyps; these polyps closely resemble anemonies in structure, although are generally considerably smaller. Most kinds of stony coral live in all parts of the underwater world.

 

 

 

 

 

b. Graptolite and Anthozoa (coral)

Graptolites (Graptolithina) are fossil colonial animals known chiefly from the Upper Cambrian through the Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian). A possible early graptolite, Chaunograptus, is known from the Middle Cambrian.

The name graptolite comes from the Greek graptos, meaning "written", and lithos, meaning "rock", as many graptolite fossils resemble hieroglyphs written on the rock. Linnaeus originally regarded them as 'pictures resembling fossils rather than true fossils', though later workers, supposed them to be related to the hydrozoans.[citation needed] More recent work places them near the pterobranchs, possibly within.

Taxonomy

The name originates from the genus Graptolithus, which was used by Linnaeus in 1735 for inorganic mineralizations and crustations which resembled actual fossils. In 1768, in the 12th volume of Systema Naturae, he included G. sagittarius and G. scalaris, respectively a possible plant fossil and a possible graptolite. In his 1751 Skånska Resa, he included a figure of a "fossil or graptolite of a strange kind" currently thought to be a type of Climacograptus (a genus of biserial graptolites). Later workers used the name to refer to a specific group of organisms. Graptolithus was officially abandoned in 1954 by the ICZN, partly because of its original purpose as a grouping for inorganic mimicries of fossils. (Bulman, 1970: V 6)

Since the 1970s, as a result of advances in electron microscopy, graptolites have generally been thought to be most closely allied to the pterobranchs, a rare group of modern marine animals belonging to the phylum Hemichordata (hemichordates). Comparisons are drawn with the modern hemichordates Cephalodiscus and Rhabdopleura.[1] Cephalodiscus numbers about 18 species, and was first discovered in 1882.

Graptolites as Index fossils

Graptolites are common fossils and have a worldwide distribution. The preservation, quantity and gradual change over a geologic time scale of graptolites allows the fossils to be used to date strata of rocks throughout the world.[1] They are important index fossils for dating Palaeozoic rocks as they evolved rapidly with time and formed many different species. British geologists can divide the rocks of the Ordovician and Silurian periods into graptolite biozones; these are generally less than one million years in duration. A worldwide ice age at the end of the Ordovician eliminated the majority of the then-living graptolite; species present during the Silurian period were the result of diversification from only a one or two species that survived the Ordovician glaciation.[1]

Graptolites are also used to estimate water depth and temperature during the graptolites lifetimes.

 


Write the correct word for the sketches:

1) Phylum: Echinodermata

Class: Echinoidae

 

2) Phylum: Colentrata

Class: Anthozoa

 

3) Phylum: Mollusca

Class: Bivalvia

 


آخر تحديث
8/23/2012 3:24:22 PM