Sentences with phrase «tunicate ciona»

Flamboyant nudibranchs, frogfish, feather stars, tunicate's, cleaner shrimp, ghost pipe fish, green turtles, leaf fish, fire urchins, and coleman shrimp can all be found here.

Tunicate faunal interactions; invasive tunicate ecology; impacts of pest tunicates on shellfish aquaculture; impacts of invasive species dominated tunicate faunas on coastal ecosystems

During dry years, when bay waters remained salty, one invader dominated above all others: the invasive tunicate Ciona robusta.

This week, researchers are unveiling the DNA code of one of the most unusual creatures sequenced to date: the tunicate.

Telltale tunicate.

Related sites Brief description of the tunicate genome project, with links to tunicate biology sites More information about Ciona

Charles Darwin thought they were relatives of mollusks; in the mid-1800s, however, Russian biologist Alexander Kowalevsky countered that the mobile tunicate larva, with its dorsal cartilaginous column resembling a spine, should be grouped with vertebrates and not clams and snails — even though the adult never develop a backbone.

In this study, the researchers began with a naturally occurring antimicrobial peptide called clavanin - A, which was originally isolated from a marine animal known as a tunicate.

Predatory tunicates spend their days attached to rocks feeding on small animals that swim into their hood - shaped mouths.

Scientists from Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center confirmed the presence of dozens of species native to Japanese coastal waters — including barnacles, starfish, urchins, anemones, amphipods, worms, mussels, limpets, snails, solitary tunicates and algae — that were on a large floating dock in Japan that washed ashore at Agate Beach near Newport, Oregon in June 2012.

Fishermen have never seen so many of the tropical tunicates, and they've even stopped fishing in areas where tens of thousands of them are being caught in nets and hooks.

Other potential invaders are the shore crab, certain tunicates like Didemnum vexillum and the so - called «Japanese skeleton shrimp» (Caprella mutica).

«I think it's premature to say that they have proved the position of tunicates,» says Billie Swalla, an evolutionary developmental biologist at the University of Washington, Seattle.

When the researchers built an evolutionary tree from these comparative data, the amphioxus branched off earliest, followed by tunicates and larvaceans, with vertebrates being the most recent to evolve, the team reports 23 February in Nature.

Tunicates have puzzled biologists for more than a century.

Yet a new genetic analysis puts them into the evolutionary spotlight: these creatures, also known as tunicates, are the closest relatives to vertebrates.

But when wetter years poured more freshwater into the Bay, colonial tunicates (right) took over.

But when the wetter winters of 2006 and 2011 hit, Ciona and other solitary tunicates like it were unable to cope with the massive influxes of freshwater.

In their place, mat - like colonial tunicates and encrusting bryozoans took over.

Jellyfish and pelagic tunicates live on smaller plankton and thus consume organic carbon.

Although some species such as jellyfish and tunicates such as salp may multiply quickly to fill such gaps, they provide so little nutrition that most predators do not pursue them and the food chain remains short.

In consequence, the data available up to now are scarce and we are just starting to comprehend the fundamental properties that will allow us to better understand the role of jellyfish and pelagic tunicates in the global carbon cycle.»

Their latest article in the international magazine «Limnology and Oceanography» describes for the first time the sinking speed of organic remains from jellyfish and pelagic tunicates.

Retailers will want to stock varieties of sponges, zoanthids, anemones, tube anemones, sea slugs, nudibranchs, Tridacna clams, thorny oysters, flame scallops, feather - duster worms, lobsters, sea urchins, sea cucumbers and tunicates.

These cayes include deep, clear lagoons encircled by steep, lush coral ridges, with coral reef, mangrove — root, and peat substrates, thickly overgrown by layers of brilliantly colored organisms, including sponges, tunicates, and marine plants.

Shrimps, brittle stars, nudlibranchs, tube worms and tunicates of every imaginable color are often overlooked by the diver.

The BBRRS is also home to endemic species including several Yucatan birds, island lizards, several fishes, tunicates, and sponges, making it an area with one of the highest levels of marine biodiversity in the Atlantic.

Barnacles, oysters, tunicates and a variety of other organisms encrust them, sometimes to a thickness many times the diameter of the root.

A favorite destination is Laughing Bird Caye National Park, which supports large stands of staghorn and elkhorn corals, along with thick growths of tunicates and anemones.

Diving here offers excellent opportunities for encounters with frogfish, seahorses, colourful mollusks, crustaceans, anemones and tunicates.

The second half of this dive was quite special due to the confluence of factors as such calm waters, fantastic hard and soft coral formations mixed with sponges, tunicates and algae of a wide range of colors.

We saw bright color Barrel Sponges, Tube Sponges, Black Coral, Tunicates and then there is the amount of Marine Life.

Nudibranch are carnivores and feed mainly on sponges, hard and soft corals, anemones, hydroids, jellyfish, tunicates and even other nudibranch!

As you drift north through the channel, the topography shifts from a gentle slope to steep wall, festooned with colourful soft corals, huge gorgonian sea fans, and sea squirts and tunicates in a multitude of sizes and shapes.

The walls field an incredible amount of colourful filter feeders, such as sea apples, sea squirts, tunicates and crinoids.

Hard and soft corals, sponges, tunicates, and bivalves are observed to grow on Biorock ® materials at extraordinary rates.