Deuterostomes are the major division of animal life which includes sea stars, acorn worms,
and humans, among a wide variety of ecologically and morphologically disparate taxa …

Echinoderms are a major group (phylum) of invertebrate animals with a rich fossil record
stretching back to the Cambrian period, approximately 518 million years ago. While all …

Evolvability is best addressed from a multi-level, macroevolutionary perspective through a
comparative approach that tests for among-clade differences in phenotypic diversification in …

Origins of higher taxonomic groups entail dramatic and nearly simultaneous changes in
morphology and ecological function, limiting our ability to disentangle the drivers of …

Echinoderms make up a substantial component of Ordovician marine invertebrates, yet their
speciation and dispersal history as inferred within a rigorous phylogenetic and statistical …

The echinoids of the order Bothriocidaroida represent the initial burst of sea urchin
diversification. They were the first echinoids to achieve widespread biogeographical …

The key terms linking ontogeny and evolution are briefly reviewed. It is shown that their
application and usage in the modern biology are often inconsistent and incorrectly …

Echinoderms have evolved diverse and disparate morphologies throughout the
Phanerozoic. Among them, blastozoans, an extinct group of echinoderms that were an …

'Species 'is an iconic term in biology. In addition to the countless concepts and definitions of
the term in biology, in the vernacular it also has important applications, for example, in its …

The fossil record is notoriously imperfect and biased in representation, hindering our ability
to place fossil specimens into an evolutionary context. For groups with fossil records mostly …