PORIFERA

Link youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_rt8GzYcgg

A bit earlier in the series we talked  about the origin of multicellular life.   We discussed
choanoflagellates and sponges,   noting that these represent the emergence  of animal life around
600 million years ago.   Since organisms resembling modern sponges are  likely the ancestors of
all the animals on Earth,   it is with such organisms that we will  begin our exploration of the
animal kingdom.  Sponges are members of phylum Porifera. The name  “Porifera” means “pore
bearer,” which is very   fitting for sponges since they’re full of pores,  or ostia. Tiny little holes
cover their bodies.   But this isn’t the only unique aspect of sponges. Not only are sponges almost
all asymmetrical, with   just a few exhibiting radial symmetry, but their  cells do not organize
into tissues or organs. They   don’t even have a mouth or anus, so there is no  digestive tract.
Instead, their unique body shapes   are adapted to allow for maximal efficiency of  water flow
through their central cavity, where the   water deposits nutrients and then leaves through  a hole
on their top end called the osculum,   meaning “little mouth.” Some species might  have several
oscula, though most have just one.  The bodies of sponges are made of two thin layers  of cells
with a jelly-like mesohyl sandwiched   between them, which is primarily composed of  collagen.
The outer layer of a sponge is covered   in a single-layer of external “skin” composed  of flat
plate-like cells called pinacocytes.   Pinacocytes at the base of the animal also anchor  it to its
substrate, the thing it is stuck to,   while those that form its “skin” can serve not  only to protect
it, but also to digest organic   material. However, the cells most responsible for  feeding are
choanocytes. These are cylindrical   cells with a single flagellum. It is the whip-like  motion of
these flagella that are responsible   for creating a current to drive water through a  sponge’s body.
So an important thing to understand   is that sponges don’t “suck in” water, instead  their insides
are lined with tiny flagella-bearing   choanocytes that literally create a current around  them. This
current isn’t strong enough to bring in   large animals, but tiny living creatures and  organic
material are easily swept into it.  So, the flagella whip back and forth causing a  current around
the sponge. The water around the   sponge is drawn into its pores, which are lined  and controlled
by porocytes that create closable   valves. In addition, there are other cells  found within the
mesohyl, like the sclerocytes,   or spongocytes in the demosponges, which excrete  spicules, the
structural element of sponges   that also deter predators. Many sponges can shed  their spicules,
forming a dense carpet of spines   around them. Other species produce toxins that  prevent other
sessile organisms, such as bryozoans   or sea squirts, from growing on or near them. Many
species of sponge also have a variety of   other cells that move through their mesohyl.  They have
oocytes and spermatocytes,   which are the reproductive cells, grey cells,  which act like immune
cells in other animals,   amoebocytes, which are amoeba-like totipotent  cells that can transform
into any other type   of cell, and others like myocytes, which  conduct signals and allow parts of
the   animal to contract, as well as several types of  collagen-producing cells. Many of these
cells,   excluding the sclerocytes, can actually  move and drift freely in the sponge mesohyl.   If
you look closely at some of these cells, they  look and behave almost like individual protozoa,  
which supports what we learned about the emergence  of multicellular life in an earlier tutorial. 
Now, something fascinating about sponges is  that since they lack any true digestive system,  
almost every one of their  cells consumes organic matter.   So as water is flowing into their
bodies, any  tiny organic material such as phytoplankton and   detritus that is trapped by a part of
the sponge  is consumed. This is a type of “filter feeding”   since the sponges only consume
organic material  suspended in the water column. However,   there are sponges, like the ping-
pong  tree sponge, that are carnivorous.   This uses tiny, hooked spicules to capture  small
crustaceans and slowly digest them alive.  This carnivorous behavior is fascinating for  sponges
since as adults, these organisms are   sessile, meaning they anchor themselves to a  substrate and
grow from there. Some sponges   have taken this behavior to the next level, and  actually house
photosynthesizing endosymbionts   within their bodies. These few species produce  more food
and oxygen than they consume,   like plants. But remember, they’re still  animals. Their bodies
capture the endosymbionts,   they can’t grow them on their own. Also, they,  like all species of
sponge, are mobile as larvae.  Speaking of larvae, or baby sponges,  let’s talk about sponge
reproduction.   The most common form of reproduction in sponges is  sexual. They release sperm
cells into the water.   In some species, ova, or eggs,  are also released into the water,   while in
others they are held within the bodies  of the sponge, hoping to be fertilized by a sperm   cell
from a different organism belonging to the  same species. It’s important to note that while   most
sponges are hermaphrodites, that is, they are  male and female at the same time, they don’t have  
gonads, or reproductive organs. Sperm and  eggs are instead produced by individual cells.  Once
an egg cell is fertilized it develops into a  zygote and then into one of four types of larvae.   All
of them are basically tiny cell balls with  flagella that line their epidermis. These larvae   will
then swim for a few days. Fascinatingly,  many of these larval sponges possess “pigment   ring
eyes” that are sensitive to light, and can  mediate their locomotion. Eventually though,   they will
sink in the water column and then  crawl until they find a place to settle.   From there they will
slowly grow into adults. Many sponge species can also asexually reproduce   using one of three
different methods, those  being budding, fragmentation, and gemmules.   Contrary to popular
belief, only a few species  of sponges can reproduce asexually by budding,   where a new sponge
develops from an outgrowth, or  bud, on the parent sponge, which then drops off. 
Fragmentation, however, is a bit more common.  All known living sponges can remold their
bodies.   Fragmentation is when a sponge regenerates  from fragments that are broken off,  
although this only works if the fragments include  the right types of cells, like the totipotent  
amoebocytes. It’s true that some sponges can  completely regenerate from a single cell,   but it
must be the right cell. Not all sponge  cells, and not all sponge species can do this.  The third
method of asexual reproduction  is through gemmules. When environmental   conditions become
less hospitable to  the sponges, like if temperatures drop,   many freshwater species and a few
marine  ones produce gemmules, which are like tiny   survival pods of unspecialized cells that 
can remain dormant until conditions improve.   Then they either form completely new sponges
or  recolonize the skeletons of their dead parents.  To finish up, let’s go over the most common
body  structures, also known as aquiferous systems   of sponges, and their extant taxonomic
classes.  There are three main sponge structures. First, the   simple tube or vase shape lined with
choanocytes  known as asconoid. Second, the syconoid,   or pleated body wall, that has inner
pockets  lined with choanocytes, which connect to the outer   pockets. And third, the complex
leuconoid pattern,  with mesohyl that contains a network of chambers   lined with choanocytes,
connected to each other  and to the water intakes and outlet by tubes. This   third body type is
actually the most common. Less  common body structures are the sylleibid, which is   often
considered to be a transitional structure  between syconoid and leuconoid conditions,   and the
solenoid, which is characterized  by complex tubes lined with choanocytes.   We should point out
that the tiny black things  lining the inside of the sponge are choanocytes.  In terms of taxonomy,
the four extant classes  of sponges: are Demospongia, Calcarea,   Hexactinellida, and
Homoscleromorpha. The  Demospongiae are the most common and diverse class   by far, with
over 8,800 identified species, making  up 76% of all sponge species. They are soft-bodied  
leuconoid sponges with a hard, sometimes massive  skeleton made of spicules composed of
silica.   Some species of demospongia can live for hundreds  or even thousands of years and
grow to enormous   sizes. The Calcarea, or calcareous sponges,  include species from all of the
three main   body structures, including the solenoid. They  have spicule skeletons made of
calcium carbonate   and are typically small and drab in color. They  include about 400 species.
The Hexactinellid   sponges are all leuconoids that are found in the  deep sea, and commonly
called “glass sponges.”   They are unique among the sponges because they  can rapidly conduct
electrical impulses across   their bodies. This makes it possible for  them to respond quickly to
external stimuli.   Lastly, the Homoscleromorpha  are either massive or encrusting   leuconoid or
sylleibid sponges with  very little variation in spicule   form. They have recently been considered
to be  phylogenetically distinct from the Demospongiae.  And that’s it for sponges. As much as
we  discussed, there is a considerable amount   of information that we didn’t cover, but as the 
purpose of this series is an introduction to   all the major phyla of kingdom Animalia, let’s  move
forward and investigate the Cnidarians next.

SPONGE

Link youtube: https://youtu.be/ntFczZew5lQ

They come in all different colors, shapes and sizes… You can have large and small sponges,
shaped as vases or baskets or even large barrel sponges. They can be branching, they can be
round, they can be encrusting, they can be massive or thin, so the variability of the body plan is
pretty amazing. Many of us have used them to bathe or clean with, and the most famous one is
Sponge Bob Square Pants, a cartoon character who entertains children from his pineapple in the
sea. But have you ever given sponges much thought? The 500 million years of evolution,
indicate that they’re true survivors. In recent years, researchers discovered that sponges are one
of the groups of marine animals that produce the most bioactive compounds, leading to many
medicinal uses. These include the development of drugs that treat viral infections, other
infectious diseases and a variety of cancers. there’s over 8,500 species of sponges that are
known. Sponges are found in all oceans basins, from tropical to arctic. There’s a few fresh water
sponges so they are very wide spread. Many tropical sponges can be found on shallow reefs to
deep reefs. Sponges are animals, primitive and simple. They don’t have true specialized or
differentiated tissue like a heart, or a brain or a liver. They do have differentiated cells.
Depending on the type or class of sponge, the skeleton can be made out of cilica or calcium
carbonate. So, most sponges have a cilica based skeleton and these are in the form of, what’s
called spicules. These spicules determine the consistency, or feel, of a sponge. You can go from
very soft to very rocklike like in the barrel sponge. People might learn a little bit from sponges as
to how they survive disturbances, changing climates. I mean, who do you want to go to when
you run into trouble. Well, it’s a group that’s been around for a long period of time. And sponges
fit that bill. What might sponge genomes tell us about long-term survival? What other secrets
might sponges reveal?

ANTHOZOA

Link youtube: https://youtu.be/P8Jf5PXDSpU

okay in this video I'm going to cover the subphylum anthozoa which as I mentioned earlier used
to be in the class anthozoa and you'll probably still see it listed as a class in many of the other
resources that you have available to you okay so one major feature is that within the anthozoa
pnes there is no medusa phase there's only the polyp body form and that also means that the
gametes are going to then be directly produced by the polyps gastrodermis because there's no
Medusa phase to produce the gametes the polyps have to so they they do that in the gastrodermis
and the zones include organisms like seein enemies which are very large robust polyps as well as
the corals which have a major importance in tropical ecosystems throughout the world one
important feature of anthozoa and polyps is that they're larger and much more complex than
those smaller hydrazone polyps and they have a number of features that you won't see in a hydra
or other hydra zones one of these features is something called the pharynx and you can think of
the pharynx as sort of a throat if you will so the pharynx the pharynx then is an important feature
that allows the organism to take in food sort of swallow it through the mouth and it's a muscular
tubular structure that allows food to sort of be pushed down in towards the gastrovascular cavity
another feature is that the gastrovascular cavity is divided into a series of Mezen terry's and i'm
going to talk about these on the next slide so this shows a cross section of a sein enemy and
remember that seeing enemies are they could be several inches across and several inches high
you know typical one maybe two to three inches across three to four inches high so this is again
a really big pala so if you take a cross-section here and we'll take a look at that both in a sort of a
photograph form and in this diagram over here you'll see a number of the structures that I
mentioned earlier so these mesentery z' are basically shells of tissue that stick out from there sort
of I guess I should say walls are more like these vertical walls of tissue some of them go all the
way and actually connect to the pharynx some of them don't so they have names like complete
and incomplete but really what I want you to realize is that what the mesentery x' do is that they
increase and you should already know the answer to this I'll say well what do you think the
purpose is of dividing the gastrovascular cavity into many sections like this you know what does
this do remember we talked about these kinds of advances and sponges well it has the effect of
increasing the overall surface area for digestion right the surface area is increased because
instead of just sort of a hollow tube here you know now we have the pharynx and rather the
gastrovascular cavity divided into all these little places for digestion to take place okay another
feature that you see is something called the siphon Oh glyph okay and you can sort of think of
the cyclonic lifts as like corners of the mouth okay and that's not exactly correct because this is a
cross-section again through the pharynx area so you can see the pharynx in cross-section here
longitudinal here and running alongside the pharynx on either side is this structure it's kind of a
curved structure it has actually a little bit more complexity to it than that and basically what the
sathana glyphs are are these ciliated grooves and these allow for water to be passing through and
into the gastrovascular cavity so the sathana glyphs are helping to bring a current in and all of
that aids in digestion I just also want to point out that this word Sol in Tehran is really just
another name for the gastrovascular cavity and in the old days the cnidarians we used to be
called the salon rats because of this name and they've kind of changed that for a number of
reasons as you'll see and read about in lab you'll see there's there are even more features and
structures to anthozoa and polyps and I'd like you to explore some of those features in the
laboratory again you're a huge diversity of anthos Owens from critters called soft corals
gorgonian corals hard corals and this diagram just shows some of the features or some of the
examples of Anthes Owens so we want to talk about a couple of the subclasses the first one is a
subclass octocorallia and as the name implies they have eight tentacles you can count the eight
tentacles here and that the tentacles have these little side branches and that's how they're referred
to as pin eight so they have these eight pin y'old tentacles or pin eight tentacles and you can see
the mouth here notice that this is a colonial organism and many of the anthozoa just like many of
the hydras Owens occur in a colony of interconnected polyps and in this case these guys secrete
a skeleton that is composed primarily of a protein so they produce something called Gorgona in
or many of them do it's a big subclass but a lot of the so called gorgonian corals produces protein
called gorgonian which is sort of a central rod and also extends to include the skeleton that you
see here all the stuff in red that you're looking at is part of the gorgonian coral the gorgonian is
also impregnated to a fair extent with calcium carbonate but we don't see the heavy calcium
carbonate skeletons like like you'll see in the hexa Corellia here we see another a couple of
examples of octa-core aliens again a sea fan which is a gorgonian quarrel and then there are these
corals called soft corals that don't have any kind of a hard skeleton at all you can see the
interconnected polyps and that they're very fleshy like corals this is just to show you a couple of
other examples of octo-core aliens here we have a sea rod and you can see that the polyps in this
colony are retracted okay meaning that they're pulled in towards the skeleton and often this
happens during the daytime and the pulps tend to come out a lot at night this other example of
Rinella and called the sea pansy we may get one of these in lab and again you can see the
individual polyps if you take a closer look you can actually count the 8 10 8 tentacles which
hopefully we'll do in lab and they're connected more by this sort of fleshy part of the coral as
opposed to that collagen collagen type protein called we're going in the subclass hexa-core alia
includes those corals that have their tentacles in multiples of 6 usually there aren't just exactly 6
like you see exactly 8 in the active coralians but multiples of 6 and you can try to count these if
you want to but generally if you see a lot of tentacles you've got a hexa Karelian as long as you
know it's an Anthes Owen on and so many of the larger reef building corals which can be called
the scleractinian corals although not all scleractinian corals build reefs there are Herman typic
and a hermit typic corals again I'm trying to keep your terminology a little bit but it's the Hermit
if ik corals that are the reef builders and here you can see some reef building corals in this reef so
the structure of these guys is that again they're a colony of interconnected polyps and they secrete
a lot of calcium carbonate at their base in the reef building lectures I'm going to talk a lot more
about this but for now let me just say that a coral colony a reef building coral in particular
consists of a thin layer of living tissue that's at the top and over time polyps have secreted
calcium carbonate cups or calluses as they're sometimes called and so they'll secrete another one
at another one another one in years after years creates this layering of calcium carbonate so when
you see a solid what looks like a rock like this chunk of Boulder coral or other kinds of coral all
you see are the coral cups or calluses or sometimes called a coral light on the surface right where
the living polyps used to be okay you see these septa in here that kind of anchored the the bottom
or pedestal part of the polyp into the skeleton okay so these guys secrete this calcium carbonate
and layer it layer it over over many years and the living polyps the living tissue on the top is
what you see at the surface also within the subclass are the seein enemies as I've mentioned
before and I just wanted to say one other thing is that often an enemies are home to a variety of
commensal istic shrimp or fish certainly you guys are familiar with the Finding Nemo clownfish
that are in some of the Polynesia and old world tropics and some of those are commensal istic
some of them are mutualistic those fish may actually bring food and feed the enemies most of
them most of the time they're not though but they gain protection from being within these
protective stinging Seldon enemies that can protect them from being eaten by other predators

ANNELIDA

Link youtube: https://youtu.be/Y8Z8v3NY0DM

In this video we’ll see a tiny fraction of the diversity of annelids. The phylum includes
something like 75 distinctive clades, traditionally ranked as families; we’ll look at only nine of
them. We’ll organize them according to this simplified phylogeny, which is based on
phylogenomic data. Most annelids seem to fall into two huge clades – Errantia and Sedentaria –
that are sister taxa, and then a few other taxa outside of that, of which we’ll see one,
Chaetopteridae. We’ve already looked at one member of Errantia, a hesionid, and one member of
Sedentaria, a clitellate, in the annelid introduction video. Errant means “traveling”, or moving
around, and sedentary means not doing that so much. We’ll start in Errantia, with a nereidid.
Members of that group are often known as ragworms. The mouth is easily visible just ventral to
the prostomium. It’s surrounded by the first segment, the peristomium. In ventral view, you can
see the two very large palps, and the two short dorsal antennae at the very anterior end. The rest
of the antenna-like structures at the anterior end are called tentacular cirri. You can see four big
chunks of longitudinal muscle in this cross-section, two ventral and two dorsal. Just between the
two ventral longitudinal muscles you can see the ventral nerve cord. You can clearly identify the
acicular chaetae in this parapodium as well as the neurochaetae and the notochaetae. Polynoids
are usually known as scaleworms, because their dorsal surface is covered with a series of
overlapping scales called elytrae. You can see how the elytrae overlap in this relaxed specimen.
Elytrae are modified dorsal cirri. Not all segments have elytrae; those that don’t have elytrae
have normal dorsal cirri. The elytrae form a shield over the dorsal part of the body, and there is a
space between the elytrae and the dorsal body wall. The dorsal body wall has a lot of cilia on it,
and those pump water from anterior to posterior, presumably for respiration. You can see that
using a dye to mark the water. The ventral nerve cord (and the brain) of scaleworms contain a
type of hemoglobin called neuroglobin, so they are red. Again, you can see aciculae in the
parapodia of scaleworms, as well as neurochaetae and notochaetae. If you remove the anterior
elytrae you can clearly see the red prostomium. The prostomium bears a long median antenna,
two short lateral antennae, and a pair of ventral palps... but in this individual it looks like the left
palp is missing. Scaleworms capture prey with an eversible proboscis that bears four sharp jaws.
In Harmothoe, like in most other annelids, the eggs are shed from the coelom to the outside
through the nephridiopores. But in this species they are shed to the space under the elytrae.
Embryos are brooded there until they are released as larvae. To get eggs there, the nephridiopore
on each segment is extended into a tube, like a little hose, that is turned up and aims into that
space between the dorsal body wall and the elytrae. Many syllid annelids undergo epitoky for
reproduction – the normally bottom-dwelling worms swim to the water surface and mate there.
Members of this species are also bioluminescent. You can see them at Colorado Lagoon in the
summer – go out to the dock there two or three days after the full moon, just after sunset, and
you’ll see a bunch of little green worms luminescing at the surface. This is a female, but I don’t
see a male attracted to her. But this female has definitely attracted a male, who is swimming
around her and probably releasing sperm. Dorvilleid annelids have a set of complex jaws, which
you can see in this ventral view. This individual everted its proboscis when it was relaxed,
showing off those complicated jaws. Now we’ll look at some sedentarian annelids. Most of those
that we have for this lab live in permanent or semi-permanent tubes. Serpulids make permanent
tubes out of calcium carbonate. They feed by sticking some prostomial appendages called
radioles out of the tube. They use cilia on the radioles both to create a water current and to
capture particles from it. One radiole is usually modified into an operculum to block the tube
opening when they pull into it to avoid predators. Many tube-dwelling annelids spawn when
removed from their tubes. This is a female. And this is a male. This is another serpulid,
Salmacina tribranchiata. Adults reproduce asexually, and form these clonal aggregations that can
be 10s of centimeters across with thousands and thousands of worms in them. And one more
serpulid, Neodexiospira. Members of this clade of serpulids usually make a spiral tube. They
brood their embryos either inside the tube, or in the operculum. In this species, they brood in the
operculum. You can see some white and red specks in this operculum. The red is from the eyes
of larvae, and the white is calcium carbonate the larvae are mineralizing to prepare for making
their adult tubes. Here are some larvae removed from the operculum. In cross-polarized light, the
calcium carbonate in the larval “calcium glands” is birefringent. That calcium carbonate will be
used to start building the adult tube once these larvae settle and metamorphose. This is the
sabellariid Phragmatopoma, known as the sand-castle worm. They build tubes with sand grains
carried to them by waves. These aggregations are formed by larvae settling together, not by
asexual reproduction of adults. Again, they suspension feed using ciliated tentacles, though these
look pretty different from those of serpulids. Sabellariids have an operculum too, though in this
case it’s made with very dark, heavy chaetae from the anterior segments! On some segments they
have dorsal gills. The posterior end is turned anteriorly in the form of this “anal tube”. This is so
that they can defecate out of the tube opening. Spionids are often extremely abundant in soft
sediment habitats. They have two palps that they use to capture food particles. Particles they
don’t eat they often incorporate into their tube. This individual is a champion tube-builder. Like
sabellariids, this spionid has dorsal gills on some segments. Cirratulids are complicated. This
species has lots of tentacles used for deposit feeding at the anterior end, but also some gills
(which are hard to see in that tangle of tentacles) on more posterior segments. You can see the
head end on the top right here. Terebellids are often known as spaghetti worms, after the many
white tentacles they use for deposit feeding. They also usually have a pair of gills. In this species
those gills are branched. The gills are red when filled with blood, but green when they contract
and push the blood back into the body. Like spionids, terebellids can build tubes with particles
they capture but don’t eat. This one built most of a tube over about an hour. Here is that process
sped up into three minutes. Though chaetopterids live in tubes, they are not part of the clade
Sedentaria. This species feeds using a long pair of palps. I don’t know what these eat in nature,
but in the lab they certainly capture brine shrimp larvae very happily. I am not sure if they are
actually eating them, but I suspect they are.