Arbacia punctulata
| Arbacia punctulata | |
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| File:Arbacia punctulata Flower Garden Banks.jpg | |
| Arbacia punctulata | |
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| Arbacia punctulata (Lamarck, 1816)
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Arbacia punctulata or Atlantic Purple Sea Urchin is a species of sea urchins from the Arbaciidae family; native to the Atlantic Ocean.
Contents
Description
The Atlantic Purple Sea Urchin is a spherical dark purple-spined sea urchin, with a nearly flat oral face. It can reach up to 6-8cm in diameter. It is native to the North Atlantic Ocean.
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Arbacia punctulata 1.jpg
Face aborale.
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Arbacia punctulata oral face.jpg
Face orale.
Habitat and range
Its natural habitat is in the Western Atlantic Ocean. Arbacia punctulata can be found in shallow water from Massachusetts to Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula, from Texas to Florida in the Gulf of Mexico, the coast from Panama to French Guiana and in the Lesser Antilles, usually on rocky, sandy, or shelly bottoms.[1]
Ecology and behaviour
A. punctulata is omnivorous, consuming a wide variety of preys[2] although Karlson[3] classified it as a generalized carnivore. It has been shown that it is galactolipids, rather than phlorotannins, that act as herbivore deterrents in Fucus vesiculosus against A. punctulata.[4]
Uses in science
For more than a century, developmental biologists have valued the sea urchin as an experimental model organism. Sea urchin eggs are transparent and can be manipulated easily in the research laboratory. Their eggs can be easily fertilized and then develop rapidly and synchronously.[5][6]
For decades, the sea urchin embryo has been used to establish the chromosome theory of heredity, the description of centrosomes, parthenogenesis, and fertilization.[7][8][9] Research work during the last 30 years established such important phenomena as stable mRNA and translational control, isolation and characterization of the mitotic apparatus, and the realization that the major structural proteins of the mitotic apparatus are microtubules.[10][11] Sea urchin studies provided the first evidence of actin in non-muscle cells.[12][13]
Arbacia punctulata is also a model organism of marine sediments toxicity[14][15] and sperm study.[16][17]
References
- ↑ Serafy, D. K., 1979: Echinoids (Echinodermata: Echinoidea). Mem. Hourglass Cruises, 5: 1 – 120.
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- ↑ Karlson, R., 1978: Predation and space utilization patterns in a marine epifaunal community. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol., 31: 225 – 239.
- ↑ Galactolipids rather than phlorotannins as herbivore deterrents in the brown seaweed Fucus vesiculosus. Michael S. Deal, Mark E. Hay, Dean Wilson and William Fenical, Oecologia, June 2003, Volume 136, Issue 1, pages 107-114, doi:10.1007/s00442-003-1242-3
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