Heterochrony has become a central organizing concept relating development and evolution. Unfortunately, the standard definition of heterochrony--evolutionary change in the rate or timing of developmental processes--is so broad as to apply to any case of phenotypic evolution. Conversely, the standard classes of heterochrony only accurately describe a small subset of the possible ways that ontoge...

The Late Cretaceous echinoid genus Micraster (irregular echinoids, Spatangoida) is one of the most famous examples of a continuous evolutionary lineage in invertebrate palaeontology. The influence of the environment on the phenotype, however, was not tested so far. This study analyses differences in phenotypical variations within three populations of Micraster (Gibbaster) brevis from the early ...

The present author has been studying the biochemical systematics of echinoids and asteroids of echinoderms by using some biochemical methods such as allozyme analysis, immunological assay, enzyme kinetic study, and comparison of amino acid composition (Matsuoka, 1980, 1986, 1987, 1992; Matsuoka et al., 1983; Matsuoka and Suzuki, 1989; Matsuoka and Hatanaka, 1991, etc.). Echinoderms are represen...

The community structure of Jamaican coral reefs has undergone drastic change since mass mortalities ofthe long-spined black sea urchin Diadema anrillarum Philippi occurred in 1983. In the absence of Diadema, algal abundance has increased enormously, up to a mean of 95% cover or 4.6 kg wet weight m-a. Coral cover, which was already low on some reefs following Hurricane Allen in 1980, has been fu...