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Monanchora Arbuscula (Red Encrusting Sponge)
''Monanchora arbuscula'' is a species of marine demosponge in the family Crambeidae. Description ''Monanchora arbusula'' is an encrusting or bushy demosponge which is dark red or bright scarlet on its inside and its surface. It forms either a low or tall mass, and individual organisms can have a bush, round, or fan shape. Its has scattered openings ( oscula) which are surrounded by a white collar in a star-like pattern. These collars are formed from exhalant canals which can sometimes not be seen. There are a few oscula which are on the ends of short tube-shaped lobes, and there are many knobs (lamellae) along the surface. Often, specimens will have different combinations of kinds of spicules which attach them to their medium. When certain specimens lack one or more of these types of spicule, identifying them becomes problematic. For example, while encrusting specimens have fine filaments of roughly tylostyle spicules, bushy specimens have a central mesh of spicules which are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Demosponge
Demosponges (Demospongiae) are the most diverse class in the phylum Porifera. They include 76.2% of all species of sponges with nearly 8,800 species worldwide (World Porifera Database). They are sponges with a soft body that covers a hard, often massive skeleton made of calcium carbonate, either aragonite or calcite. They are predominantly leuconoid in structure. Their "skeletons" are made of spicules consisting of fibers of the protein spongin, the mineral silica, or both. Where spicules of silica are present, they have a different shape from those in the otherwise similar glass sponges. Some species, in particular from the Antarctic, obtain the silica for spicule building from the ingestion of siliceous diatoms. The many diverse orders in this class include all of the large sponges. Most are marine dwellers, but one order ( Spongillida) live in freshwater environments. Some species are brightly colored, with great variety in body shape; the largest species are ove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reef
A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock outcrops, etc.—but there are also reefs such as the coral reefs of tropical waters formed by biotic processes dominated by corals and coralline algae, and artificial reefs such as shipwrecks and other anthropogenic underwater structures may occur intentionally or as the result of an accident, and sometimes have a designed role in enhancing the physical complexity of featureless sand bottoms, to attract a more diverse assemblage of organisms. Reefs are often quite near to the surface, but not all definitions require this. Earth's largest coral reef system is the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, at a length of over . Biotic There is a variety of biotic reef types, including oyster reefs and sponge reefs, but the most massive and widely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zygote
A zygote (, ) is a eukaryotic cell formed by a fertilization event between two gametes. The zygote's genome is a combination of the DNA in each gamete, and contains all of the genetic information of a new individual organism. In multicellular organisms, the zygote is the earliest developmental stage. In humans and most other anisogamous organisms, a zygote is formed when an egg cell and sperm cell come together to create a new unique organism. In single-celled organisms, the zygote can divide asexually by mitosis to produce identical offspring. German zoologists Oscar and Richard Hertwig made some of the first discoveries on animal zygote formation in the late 19th century. Humans In human fertilization, a released ovum (a haploid secondary oocyte with replicate chromosome copies) and a haploid sperm cell (male gamete) combine to form a single diploid cell called the zygote. Once the single sperm fuses with the oocyte, the latter completes the division of the second ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermaphrodite
In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes. Many Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which either partner can act as the female or male. For example, the great majority of tunicata, tunicates, pulmonate molluscs, opisthobranch, earthworms, and slugs are hermaphrodites. Hermaphroditism is also found in some fish species and to a lesser degree in other vertebrates. Most plants are also hermaphrodites. Animal species having different sexes, male and female, are called Gonochorism, gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphrodite. There are also species where hermaphrodites exist alongside males (called androdioecy) or alongside females (called gynodioecy), or all three exist in the same species ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mangrove
A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in several plant families. They occur worldwide in the tropics and subtropics and even some temperate coastal areas, mainly between latitudes 30° N and 30° S, with the greatest mangrove area within 5° of the equator. Mangrove plant families first appeared during the Late Cretaceous to Paleocene epochs, and became widely distributed in part due to the plate tectonics, movement of tectonic plates. The oldest known fossils of Nypa fruticans, mangrove palm date to 75 million years ago. Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees, also called halophytes, and are adapted to live in harsh coastal conditions. They contain a complex salt filtration system and a complex root system to cope with saltwater immersion and wave action. They are ad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Substrate (biology)
In biology, a substrate is the surface on which an organism (such as a plant, fungus, or animal) lives. A substrate can include biotic or abiotic materials and animals. For example, encrusting algae that lives on a rock (its substrate) can be itself a substrate for an animal that lives on top of the algae. Inert substrates are used as growing support materials in the hydroponic cultivation of plants. In biology substrates are often activated by the nanoscopic process of substrate presentation. In agriculture and horticulture * Cellulose substrate * Expanded clay aggregate (LECA) * Rock wool * Potting soil * Soil In animal biotechnology Requirements for animal cell and tissue culture Requirements for animal cell and tissue culture are the same as described for plant cell, tissue and organ culture (In Vitro Culture Techniques: The Biotechnological Principles). Desirable requirements are (i) air conditioning of a room, (ii) hot room with temperature recorder, (iii) microscope r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alcyonacea
Alcyonacea, or soft corals, are an order of corals. In addition to the fleshy soft corals, the order Alcyonacea now contains all species previously known as "gorgonian corals", that produce a more or less hard skeleton, though quite different from "true" corals (Scleractinia). These can be found in suborders Holaxonia, Scleraxonia, and Stolonifera. They are sessile colonial cnidarians that are found throughout the oceans of the world, especially in the deep sea, polar waters, tropics and subtropics. Common names for subsets of this order are sea fans and sea whips; others are similar to the sea pens of related order Pennatulacea. Individual tiny polyps form colonies that are normally erect, flattened, branching, and reminiscent of a fan. Others may be whiplike, bushy, or even encrusting. A colony can be several feet high and across, but only a few inches thick. They may be brightly coloured, often purple, red, or yellow. Photosynthetic gorgonians can be successfully kept in c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mollusc Shell
The mollusc (or molluskOften spelled mollusk shell in the USA; the spelling "mollusc" are preferred by ) shell is typically a calcareous exoskeleton which encloses, supports and protects the soft parts of an animal in the phylum Mollusca, which includes snails, clams, tusk shells, and several other classes. Not all shelled molluscs live in the sea; many live on the land and in freshwater. The ancestral mollusc is thought to have had a shell, but this has subsequently been lost or reduced on some families, such as the squid, octopus, and some smaller groups such as the caudofoveata and solenogastres. Today, over 100,000 living species bear a shell; there is some dispute as to whether these shell-bearing molluscs form a monophyletic group (conchifera) or whether shell-less molluscs are interleaved into their family tree. Malacology, the scientific study of molluscs as living organisms, has a branch devoted to the study of shells, and this is called conchology—although these te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coral
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton. A coral "group" is a colony of very many genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is a sac-like animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in height. A set of tentacles surround a central mouth opening. Each polyp excretes an exoskeleton near the base. Over many generations, the colony thus creates a skeleton characteristic of the species which can measure up to several meters in size. Individual colonies grow by asexual reproduction of polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning: polyps of the same species release gametes simultaneously overnight, often around a full moon. Fertilized eggs form planulae, a mobile early form of the coral polyp which, when m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brackish Water
Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuaries, or it may occur in brackish fossil aquifers. The word comes from the Middle Dutch root '' brak''. Certain human activities can produce brackish water, in particular civil engineering projects such as dikes and the flooding of coastal marshland to produce brackish water pools for freshwater prawn farming. Brackish water is also the primary waste product of the salinity gradient power process. Because brackish water is hostile to the growth of most terrestrial plant species, without appropriate management it is damaging to the environment (see article on shrimp farms). Technically, brackish water contains between 0.5 and 30 grams of salt per litre—more often expressed as 0.5 to 30 parts per thousand (‰), which is a specific gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crambeidae
Crambeidae is a family of marine demosponges. Identification of members of this family of sponges is based on microscopic examination of the spicules in their skeleton. The megascleres consist of peripheral thinner subtylostyles and thicker choanosomal styles while the microscleres are exclusively anchorate chelae. Genera *''Crambe ''Crambe'' is a genus of annual and perennial flowering plants in the family Brassicaceae, native to a variety of habitats in Europe, Turkey, southwest and central Asia and eastern Africa. They carry dense racemes of tiny white or yellow flowers ...'' Vosmaer, 1880 *'' Discorhabdella'' Dendy, 1924 *'' Lithochela'' Burton, 1929 *'' Monanchora'' Carter, 1883 References Poecilosclerida {{Demosponge-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monanchora Barbadensis (Red Encrusting Sponge)
''Monanchora'' is a genus of demosponges belonging to the family Crambeida. The genus contains 18 species, which have been researched for their potential use in medicine. Description Morphology The species with in ''Monanchora'' vary in their morphology. The genus ''Monanchora'' is defined by belonging to the family Crambeidae while lacking pseudoatrose spicules. The structure of the species belonging to the genus ''Monachora'' varies from encrusting to lobate to ramose. A typical identifying characteristic of this genus is a canal system that is swollen and has a light colored lining. This canal system collapses when taken out of water. Species in this genus have simple skeletal arrangements that can develop bushes at the surface without the use of ectosomal skeletons. The spicules observed vary among and within species and can be categorized by size into two groups: megascleres and microscleres. In some species the microscleres may be reduced, absent or modified, resulti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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