Phylum Echinodermata

Phylum
Echinodermata
• This phylum includes about 7000 species
of marine animals such as sea stars, sea
urchins, sand dollars, sea cucumbers,
brittle stars, and basket stars.
• The phylum name means “spiny skin”;
many (but not all) echinoderms are
covered in spiky spines. The sea urchin
(above) and crown of thorns sea star
(below) are great examples of this! Some
echinoderms can move their spines, and
some can’t.
• Like we’ve seen up to this point,
echinoderms have three germ layers
(triploblastic) and a true coelom.
 The Throwback Phylum
• Echinoderms seem to defy the trends of
increasing complexity we’ve seen.
• They are radially symmetrical instead of
bilaterally symmetrical. (Usually adults
demonstrate five part or pentaradial
symmetry.)
• There is no cephalization – no head, no
concentration of sensory organs at one
end, and no brain.
• All echinoderms are marine; there are no
freshwater or terrestrial species.
• Echinoderms have no specialized
systems for respiration, circulation or
excretion. They rely on diffusion through
body parts called skin gills and tube feet,
and on their water vascular systems.
 The test

Unifying Characteristics of a sea

urchin

of Echinoderms
• Echinoderms are one of two phyla (the other
being Phylum Chordata) with internal skeletons.
Their skeleton is composed of hard bony plates
or ossicles made of calcium carbonate. In some
echinoderms, the plates fuse together to form a
Ossicles from a sea cucumber
test. (see sea urchin test, pictured above)
• Echinoderms and chordates are also both
deuterostomes, meaning their blastopore, the
first opening in the blastula, becomes their anus.
• All other invertebrate animals are protostomes
and their blastopores become their mouths.
• Review gastrulation, protostomes and
deuterostomes with Crash Course:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_9MTZgAh
v0&vl=en)
 Review: Protostomes and Deuterostomes
• Recall that a blastula (hollow ball of cells
early in embryo development) will
develop an indented opening in one side
called a blastopore.
• In Phylum Cnidaria and Platyhelminthes,
this blastopore becomes the
gastrovascular cavity and functions as
both mouth and anus.
• In all later phyla, the indentation
continues until it reaches the other side
and the hollow ball has become a tube.
• When the blastopore becomes the
mouth, the animal is called a
protostome. When the blastopore
becomes the anus, the animal is called a
deuterostome.
 Echinoderm Body Plan
• As mentioned previously,
adult echinoderms display
pentaradial symmetry. These
sea stars are demonstrating it
with their five arms (or rays)
surrounding a central mouth.
(Not all sea stars have five
arms, though.)
• We generally refer to the
surface with the mouth on it
as the oral surface (usually
faces down). The other
surface, with no mouth, we
call the aboral surface (usually
faces up). This naming system
works well for sea stars,
urchins and sand dollars.
 The Water
Vascular System
• One of the most important
parts of an echinoderm is its
water vascular system. This
hydraulic system is used in
almost all life processes,
including movement,
respiration, feeding, excretion,
and internal transport.
• Echinoderms take in sea water
through their madreporite or
sieve plate. Water passes
through the stone canal into
the ring canal, then through
radial canals to lateral canals tube feet
and the tube feet.
 Tube Feet
• Each arm of an echinoderm possesses two
rows of tube feet. Each can move and has a
suction disc attached to the end to help it
grip onto surfaces. Echinoderms use their
tube feet to move and to manipulate food.
• Each tube foot has two parts: a fluid-filled
bulb called an ampulla and the foot part,
called the podium. When muscles squeeze
the fluid-filled ampulla, the pressure makes
the podium extend. (It’s kind of like those
stress relief toys, where part of it pops out
when you squeeze it.) When the ampulla
relaxes, it creates a bit of a vacuum seal
which makes the podia suck or stick onto the
surface.
• Here’s a very quick video clip of tube feet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvTH3Q4OLdQ
 Life Processes in Echinoderms: Nervous System
• Echinoderms do not display
cephalization and do not have a
brain. Their nerves are arranged
radially around their central disc.
They have a central nerve ring
and a number of radial nerves.
• Their tube feet can function as Compare the nerve ring of the starfish with the nerve net of
sensory organs. They are a cnidarian or the nerve ladder of a planarian.

sensitive to both touch and

chemicals. In some species, they
are also sensitive to light.
• Echinoderms may also have
ocelli, simple eyespots on the
ends of their arms. While they
don’t form images, the ocelli can
detect light and dark.
Sensory tube feet The red spot is the ocellus.
 Life Processes in Echinoderms:
Movement
• Echinoderms move primarily with their
tube feet, along with muscles, nerves
and the water vascular system. Each tiny Watch a crinoid feather star swim:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r
tube foot can move independently, and Rej1VKDgcE
when the tube feet work together, the
animal can crawl along the sea floor.
• Some echinoderms move in other ways
as well. Sea urchins can use their spines
to move. Brittle stars (and to a lesser
degree other sea stars) move their arms
as well as their tube feet. Sea cucumbers
wriggle slowly along the bottom with
peristalsis by using their body muscles.
• Some echinoderms called crinoids can
sort of swim, while other crinoids called
A sessile sea lily is attached to the
sea lilies are usually sessile and don’t sea floor by its holdfast.
move as adults at all.
 Life Processes in Echinoderms: Respiration,
Internal Transport and Excretion
a skin gill
• Sea stars use diffusion and their water vascular
systems to accomplish many life processes for
which other phyla have developed specialized
organs.
• Internal transport and excretion rely on
diffusion and the water vascular system. Waste
is excreted through tube feet and skin gills.
• Gas exchange for respiration is by diffusion
A cross section through a sea star’s arm
through the tube feet and skin gills (dermal
branchia). Sea cucumbers also have respiratory
structures called respiratory trees.
• The skin gills are sometimes confused with the
hard, bony spines, or the small pincer-like
pedicellaria which pinch off things that try to
grow on the echinoderm to keep it free of
encrusting organisms. They are softer than both
of these, though. The skin gills or dermal branchia are smaller than the
spines and softer than the spines and pedicellaria.
 Life Processes in
Echinoderms: Feeding
• Echinoderms display a wide variety of
feeding types: carnivorous sea stars,
herbivorous sea urchins, filter feeding
crinoids, etc. Sea cucumbers can be either
filter feeders or detritivores.
• Echinoderms have complete gastrulation,
with mouths, stomachs, intestines and
anuses. The digestive tract of the sea
urchin on the right is shown in green.
• Sea stars actually have two stomachs.
They can evert their cardiac stomachs,
extending them from their bodies and
slipping their stomachs right into the The
shells of mollusks to start digesting their translucent
structure is
meal before it’s even inside them. the sea
Digestion continues in its pyloric stomach, star’s
aided by digestive enzymes produced by everted
the pyloric caeca. stomach.
 Life Processes in Echinoderms:
Reproduction
• Echinoderms usually have separate sexes but
external fertilization. They are broadcast
spawners, releasing large numbers of gametes
(eggs from females, sperm from males), only a
few of which will ever become adults. A female
can release a hundred million eggs at once.
• Sperm and eggs are made in the gonads and
released into the water. The fertilized eggs
become free-swimming bilaterally symmetrical
larvae (called bipinnaria) which eventually
metamorphose into pentaradial adults.
• Some echinoderms have incredible
regenerative abilities. An injured sea star can
regrow its whole body from a single arm as long
Sea star
as it also contains a part of its central disc. regenerating
However, they don’t reproduce this way from a single
arm
deliberately.
 Ecological Roles of
Echinoderms
• Even though they are simple in many ways,
echinoderms are well adapted to their
environments. (Remember, simple is not
worse!) They have many important
ecological roles.
• Starfish and brittle stars prevent the growth
of large mats of algae on coral reefs with
their activity.
• The death of echinoderms is often followed
by an increase in seaweed growth and
destruction of reefs.
• Echinoderms are an important part of the
food chain; their larvae are often food for
other creatures.
 Ecological Roles

• Sea urchins can actually bore into rocks,

releasing nutrients into the water. Their
grazing also reduces the rate of
colonization of bare rock. Sea urchins are
capable of decimating kelp forests with
their feeding action.
• The burrowing action of sand dollars and
sea cucumbers increases oxygen levels
in the sand, allowing other animals to
survive there.
• Some echinoderms feed on dead and
decaying organisms, helping cycle
nutrients.
 Economic Importance of
Echinoderms
• While they are not as economically significant as
mollusks and arthropods, echinoderms have some
economic importance to humans.
• Their endoskeletons or tests are sometimes used for
jewelry or other decorative items
• Their toxins and chemicals are studied by medical
researchers, such as sea cucumber toxins which may
slow tumor growth.
• Some echinoderms are edible delicacies in parts of
the world. For example, sea urchins are edible, though
we only eat the gonads. (Reproductive structures …
yum.) Sea urchin is uni in sushi or Japanese cuisine.
(Are sea urchins sustainable? Many are, not all:
https://seafood.ocean.org/seafood/type/sea-urchin/)
• Sea cucumbers are also edible; they are popular in Watch how uni is processed
many Asian cuisines. Watch the video to find out why commercially:
they are so expensive: https://www.youtube.com/watc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRH5KzNQxmc h?v=REhLHpdLCE0
Five Classes of
There are five classes of
Echinoderms echinoderms, each with their
own variation on the
pentaradial symmetry and
water vascular system
characteristic of the phylum:
• Class Asteroidea (sea
stars)
• Class Echinoidea (sea
urchins and sand dollars)
• Class Ophiuroida (brittle
stars and basket stars)
• Class Crinoidea (feather
star and sea lilies)
• Class Holothuroidea (sea
cucumbers)
 Class Asteroidea
• This class contains what most people call starfish, but
are actually called sea stars. There are around 2000
species worldwide, and around 30 species can be
found in the Salish Sea region off BC’s coast. Pycnopodia helianthoides, the sunflower sea star,
• Sea stars come in a variety of colours and can be found is found off BC’s coast and is one of the largest
species in the world—up to 1 meter in diameter!
in oceans and along coastlines throughout the world.
Most are pretty slow moving, though the Pacific
sunflower sea star is pretty fast … by sea star
standards, that is.
• While many sea stars have 5 arms, like the purple sea
star below, some species have more, such as the
sunflower species pictured above.
• Sea stars are carnivores, often feeding on mollusks
such as bivalve clams, oysters and mussels.
• Many sea stars are dying of a mysterious disease
known as sea star wasting disease. Watch the clip to
However, this Pisaster ochraceous, the purple
learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPSFdjvES_Y sea star or ochre sea star, is probably the most
familiar species in our region.
 Living sand dollars Sea urchins grazing on kelp Aristotle’s lantern

• This class of echinoderms includes sea urchins and sand

dollars. Many have moveable spines. Urchins lack arms and
have a rounded body shape. This is easily seen when you
look at their calcareous endoskeletons called tests. Sand
dollars just look like flattened sea urchins.
• Sea urchins feed with a five-part jaw called Aristotle’s
Class Echinoidea lantern. However, they can be a big problem for kelp. Their
ravenous appetite for kelp means urchins can decimate
kelp forests with their grazing, like on Haida Gwaii.
• Spot a sand dollar on the beach? If it’s completely white, it’s
probably just the endoskeleton of a dead sand dollar. Living
sand dollars are darker purple or black.
 Class Ophiuroidea

• This is the largest class of echinoderms. It

includes basket stars and brittle stars. They
can be found worldwide, from shallow A video of this basket star went viral.
intertidal pools to deep hydrothermal vents.
• While they do have arms like Class
Asteroidea, brittle star arms tend to be
thinner. Almost all brittle stars have five
arms. As the name suggests, the arms break
off easily. (Basket stars, on the other hand,
look like a tangled mess of tentacles.)
• Brittle stars and basket stars may be
carnivores, filter feeders, or detritivores.
• Their tube feet are still used for movement,
but they lack the suction cups on the ends A brittle star with five arms
seen in other sea stars.
 Class Crinoidea

• The crinoids include sea lilies and

feather stars. While only about 600
species are alive today, we have
A feather star
excellent fossils of crinoids dating back
400 million years.
• Sea lilies tend to have stalks and
holdfasts anchoring them to the sea
floor. They are sessile.
• Feather stars lack stalks and look more
like underwater alien ferns. Some
feather stars can use their arms to swim.
• Feather stars and sea lilies are both filter
feeders, using the sticky tube feet on
their arms to catch plankton and small
particles from the water column.
A fossilized sea lily
 Class Holothuroidea

• The sea cucumbers are definitely the least spiky of their

echinoderm cousins. Their endoskeletons are reduced,
and their ossicles may be tiny and not overlapping.
• They tend to be quite slow-moving or sedentary.
• Because they lie horizontally rather than standing
upright, they do exhibit bilateral symmetry as adults.
However, they still have pentaradial symmetry, albeit
on a horizontal axis. They have five rows of tube feet
which run along their bodies, and their feeding
tentacles may come in multiples of five (e.g. ten).
• Sea cucumbers may either be filter feeders, straining
particles out of the water with their tentacles (which
are really modified tube feet), or detritivores, shoveling
sand in their mouths to find food particles in it.
• When a sea cucumber is threatened, it may eject its
sticky, toxic guts as a defense mechanism.
Echinoderm Playlist
Please make sure you’ve viewed all the bolded videos. Some were linked in the powerpoint.

Phylum Overview: Echinoderms: The Ultimate Animal (Shape of Life):

https://www.shapeoflife.org/video/echinoderms-ultimate-animal

Class Asteroidea – Sea stars

• Sea Stars (Jonathan Bird’s Blue World):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxbW4W_nMZs&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_n6
PU&index=4
• Sunflower Seastar: Terrifying Predator? (National Geographic):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnJ8preFDdA&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_n6PU
&index=14
• Sunflower star has a weird way of eating (Vancouver Aquarium):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6dnmLDu6Eg
• Why Are So Many Starfish Dying? (National Geographic):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPSFdjvES_Y&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_n6PU
&index=17
• Bonus: Zombie Sea Stars (BBC):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrfcglOmBYw&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_n6PU
&index=3
Echinoderm Playlist
Class Echinoidea – Sea urchins and sand dollars
• Sea Urchins Pull Themselves Inside Out to be Reborn (Deep Look):
youtube.com/watch?v=ak2xqH5h0YY&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_n6PU&index=2&t=0s
• How Sea Urchin (Uni) is Processed Commercially (Eater):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REhLHpdLCE0&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_n6PU&index=11
• A Sand Dollar’s Breakfast is Totally Metal (Deep Look):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxZdBPDNiF4&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_n6PU&index=2

Class Ophiuroida – Basket stars and brittle stars

• Brittle Stars of LA County (Waterbody): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK5jfGe8RO0
• Basket Star (Hakai Wild):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OCUQ6dqv0Y&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_n6PU&index=10
• Basket Star Eating Close Up (Seattle Aquarium):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VItgfWZYR2s&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_n6PU&index=15
• Bonus: Basket Star Eating (Seattle Aquarium):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpPdMohsCfk&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_n6PU&index=8
• Bonus: Brittle Stars Could Teach Robots To See With Their Skin (SciShow):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnj3rXs8tJE
• Bonus: Basket Star: The Mini-Kraken (Deep Sea Oddities):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEEjLXCWV6M&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_n6PU&index=9
Echinoderm Playlist
Class Crinoidea – Sea lilies and feather stars
• Feather Stars and Sea Lilies (Monterey Bay Aquarium):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFWeqDcAYGk
• Bonus: Feather Stars Are the Most Mesmerizing Creatures in the Ocean (Animalogic):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz1FdgJJVM0&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_
n6PU&index=7
• Bonus: Rare Moment Feather Star is Caught Swimming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRej1VKDgcE&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn_
n6PU&index=6
Class Holothuroidea – Sea cucumbers
• Sea cucumbers (Blue World Academy):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlqa1mZ_5pM&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn
_n6PU&index=5
• Sea Cucumber Fights with Guts (Literally). (Nat Geo Wild):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXf_YodWw40&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn
_n6PU&index=12
• Bonus: Why Sea Cucumbers Are So Expensive (Business Insider):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRH5KzNQxmc&list=PL3RHCtLlatOsPr_vmAAcp2xBu3Dn
_n6PU&index=13