When the chlorophyte alga Dunaliella tertiolecta is placed in darkness, a form of programmed cell death with many similarities to apoptosis (including the induction of caspase-like proteases) is induced. Many uncertainties about this process remain, two of which are whether it requires protein synthesis and whether there is potential viral involvement. In order to examine the relationship betwe...

Feeding invertebrate larvae may be food limited while developing in the ocean. If they are, then their time in the plankton is prolonged, which likely increases mortality. Food limitation could be due to the quantity and/or quality of the food available. In an effort to answer how food type influences larval nutrition, we compared growth, development and lipid deposition for Dendraster excentri...

Experiments were conducted with the aim of defining the optimal culture conditions for Psammechinus miliaris larvae. Larval response to varying food rations of the microalgae, Pleurocrysis elongata, was assessed by recording the morphological parameters of developing Ž y1. larvae. Larvae on a high ration 4000 cells ml showed an extreme reduction in postoral arm length and were unable to maintai...