Serenity- Echinodermata Ecology

 One of our assignments for this course included studying a phylum of invertebrates and creating a presentation on them. My group studied Echinodermata and I covered the ecology of such- how they interact within and with their environment. I figured I’d share some of the things I learned on this blogpost!

As a general rule, echinodermata are sessile, deposit-feeders, and have a vascular system that allows them to suction onto more solid objects. (there are several other identifying factors, but those are a few that directly affect the environments they choose to live in).



Ecology covers interspecies community interactions, and I loved learning about the doubly positive symbiotic  relationships sea anemones (an echinoderm) share with hermit crabs. Being sessile, it is hard for anemones to quickly escape predators, so sometimes they will attach themselves to a hermit crab shell. They feed off the deposits of organic matter in the water low to the ground as the crab moves along, and the anemone helps to protect the crab and camouflage it. The crab moving around creates constant opportunity for new nutrients for the anemone. The anemone’s suction feet it uses with its unique vascular system helps it to stay suctioned to the crab as it moves. Understanding the biology of each creature helps us understand the ecology of why they choose to interact with one another and form the habits they do. This, in turn, gives us potential opportunities to predict future behavior, which could be critical when trying to save a dying species or in other research scenarios.

Ecology is applied biology. It goes further than the facts and answers the why. This book I found in CEDO’s library went so far into depth on the subject and I greatly appreciated the time and effort the author took to share what methods would yield best results and how to extract details and answers to questions from chemical data. This course has given me a lot of exposure to marine sciences and it is so exciting to me to know that so much research still needs to be done.

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