Reproduction: Widespread cloning in echinoderm larvae

@article{Eaves2003ReproductionWC,
  title={Reproduction: Widespread cloning in echinoderm larvae},
  author={Alexandra A. Eaves and A. Richard Palmer},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2003},
  volume={425},
  pages={146-146}
}
Asexual reproduction by free-living invertebrate larvae is a rare and enigmatic phenomenon and, although it is known to occur in sea stars and brittle stars, it has not been detected in other echinoderms despite more than a century of intensive study. Here we describe spontaneous larval cloning in three species from two more echinoderm classes: a sea cucumber (Holothuroidea), a sand dollar and a sea urchin (Echinoidea). Larval cloning may therefore be an ancient ability of echinoderms and… 
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Predator-Induced Larval Cloning in the Sand Dollar Dendraster excentricus: Might Mothers Matter?

  • D. Vaughn
  • Environmental Science, Biology
    The Biological Bulletin
  • 2009
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The hypothesis that cloning in D. excentricus plutei is maternally influenced by mothers is tested and reduced larval size was a uniform response to fish mucus and did not indicate an effect of mothers.

The Use of Larval Sea Stars and Sea Urchins in the Discovery of Shared Mechanisms of Metazoan Whole-Body Regeneration

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...

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