In recent years, scientists have made remarkable progress reconstructing the animal
phylogeny. There is broad agreement regarding many deep animal relationships, including …

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are transmembrane pattern recognition receptors that are best
known for their roles in innate immunity for the detection of and defense against microbial …

Resolving the early diversification of animal lineages has proven difficult, even using
genome-scale datasets. Several phylogenomic studies have supported the classical …

Background Demospongiae is the largest sponge class including 81% of all living sponges
with nearly 7,000 species worldwide. Systema Porifera (2002) was the result of a large …

Background Trichoplax adhaerens is the best-known member of the phylum Placozoa, one
of the earliest-diverging metazoan phyla. It is a small disk-shaped animal that glides on …

Animal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is commonly described as a small, circular molecule
that is conserved in size, gene content, and organization. Data collected in the last decade …

Molecular phylogenetic analyses have produced a plethora of controversial hypotheses
regarding the patterns of diversification of non-bilaterian animals. To unravel the causes for …

Aquatic invertebrates play a pivotal role in (eco) toxicological assessments because they
offer ethical, cost‐effective and repeatable testing options. Additionally, their significance in …

The isolation of the Southern Ocean after the opening of Drake Passage some 23–25 million
years ago, the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the subsequent cooling of the …

Twenty candidate fossils with claim to be the oldest representative of the P hylum P orifera
have been re‐analysed. Three criteria are used to assess each candidate:(i) the diagnostic …