Australian Echinoderms Biology, Ecology and Evolution

About this book

Echinoderms, including feather stars, seastars, brittle stars, sea urchins and sea cucumbers, are some of the most beautiful and interesting animals in the sea. They play an important ecological role and several species of sea urchins and sea cucumbers form the basis of important fisheries. Over 1000 species live in Australian waters, from the shoreline to the depths of the abyssal plain and the tropics to Antarctic waters.

Australian Echinoderms is an authoritative account of Australia's 110 families of echinoderms. It brings together in a single volume comprehensive information on the identification, biology, evolution, ecology and management of these animals for the first time. Richly illustrated with beautiful photographs and written in an accessible style, Australian Echinoderms suits the needs of marine enthusiasts, academics and fisheries managers both in Australia and other geographical areas where echinoderms are studied.

Contents

Foreword
Contents at a glance
Extended Contents
Editors and Contributors
Contributors
Illustrators and Photographers

Part 1: Introduction to Echinoderms
1: Introduction
2: Ecology and Behaviour
3: Echinoderm Life Histories
4: Management: Fisheries, Ferals and Conservation
5: Biogeography
6: Phylogeny and Geological History

Part 2: Echinoderm Diversity
7: Class CRINOIDEA
8: Class ASTEROIDEA
9: Class OPHIUROIDEA
10: Class ECHINOIDEA
11: Class HOLOTHUROIDEA

References
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Maria Byrne is Professor of Marine and Developmental Biology at the University of Sydney. Her research interests are on the biology, ecology, conservation and evolution in marine invertebrates with a focus on echinoderms from across the globe and more recently on the impacts of climate change.

Timothy O'Hara has been researching echinoderms since high school. Since becoming a curator at Museums Victoria in 2001, his research has focused on using the vast amounts of data and specimens stored in museum collections to address issues of biodiversity conservation and management. He has conducted biodiversity and ecological surveys, mapped the distribution of seafloor animals across oceans, used extracted DNA to study evolution, and described many beautiful new species.