Development of Marine Invertebrates

Marine invertebrates are used in developmental, cell, and evolutionary biology, and some critical biological phenomena have been found using these organisms. For example, one of the most important cell-cycle regulator proteins, cyclin, was found in a sea urchin (Evans et al., Cell 33:389–396, 1983); the cell-fate determinant, macho-1, was first identified in ascidians (Nishida and Sawada, Nature 409:724–729, 2001); and it was clearly demonstrated, using spiralians, that the acquisition of a novel gene set could produce new developmental processes (Morino et al., Nature Ecology & Evolution 1:1942–1949, 2017). Due to the easy accessibility of their habitats and easily obtained gametes, marine invertebrates have been used for science and education in marine biological stations worldwide. In this chapter, we summarize methods for the use of marine invertebrates to study developmental biology with a focus on sea urchins, ascidians, and gastropods.