Reproduction: Widespread cloning in echinoderm larvae
Abstract
Asexual reproduction by free-living invertebrate larvae is a rare and enigmatic phenomenon and, although it is known to occur in sea stars and brittle stars, it has not been detected in other echinoderms despite more than a century of intensive study. Here we describe spontaneous larval cloning in three species from two more echinoderm classes: a sea cucumber (Holothuroidea), a sand dollar and a sea urchin (Echinoidea). Larval cloning may therefore be an ancient ability of echinoderms and possibly of deutero-stomes - the group that includes echinoderms, acorn worms, sea squirts and vertebrates.
- Publication:
-
Nature
- Pub Date:
- September 2003
- DOI:
- 10.1038/425146a
- Bibcode:
- 2003Natur.425..146E