Chapter 27 Introduction to Animal Diversity

Learning Objectives:

Features of the Animal

- All animals require a source of food (heterotrophic), ingesting other living or dead
organisms
- Different from autotrophic organisms (plants) that synthesize their own nutrients
through photosynthesis
- Animals may be carnivores, herbivores, omnivores or parasites
- Almost all have complex tissue structure with specialized tissue
- Typical life cycle diplontic (diploid state multicellular, haploid state gametic)
- No alternation of generations
Complex Tissue Structure
- Tissue structure associated with methods of food capture
- Complex digestive systems supported by accessory organs
- Movement driven by muscle tissues attached to bone or chitin; coordinated by
neural communication
- Evolution of tissues allow animals to rapidly sense and respond to changes in env.
- Cells don't have cell walls; embedded in extracellular matrix
- Have collagen instead
- Sticks cells together
- Vertebrates: bone tissue is connective tissue supports entire body structure
Animal kingdom divided into five monophyletic clades:
1. Parazoa or Porifera (sponges)
2. Placozoa (tiny parasitic creatures that resemble multicellular amoebae)
3. Cnidaria (jellyfish and their relatives)
4. Ctenophora (the comb jellies)
5. Bilateria (all other animals)

- Placozoa (flat animal) and Parazoa (“beside animal”) do not have specialized tissues
derived from germ layers of the embryo
- they do possess specialized cells that act functionally similar to tissues
- Placozoa:
- Have only four cell types
- Parazoa
- Have nearly two dozen cell types
Eumetazoa (“true animals”)

Animal Reproduction and Development

 - Most diploid organisms (body cells are diploid and reproductive cells (gametes) are
haploid (produced through meiosis)
- Most undergo sexual reproduction
- Cnidarians, flatworms, roundworms may also undergo asexual reproduction
Processes of Animal Reproduction and Embryonic Development

Sexual Reproduction:
- Definition: haploid gametes of male and female individuals of a species combine through
fertilization
- Male gamete: typically a small, motile sperm
- Female gamete: typically larger, sessile egg
- Results in formation of a diploid fertilized egg known as a zygote
Asexual Reproduction in some animal species
- Ex: Sea stars and sea anemones
- Methods:
- Budding: form of asexuyal reproductionwhere new individual develops as an
outgrowth or bud from parent organism
- Fragmentation: involves the separation of a part of the parent organism which
then grows into new individual
- Produces genetically identical offspring
- Risk of accumulating deleterious mutations
Parthenogenesis
- Definition: form of uniparental reproduction found in some insects and few vertebrates
- Progeny develop from gamete without fertilization
- Only females can produce parthenogenetic offspring
- Nutrients stored ini eggs support development of offspring

- Primary germ layers (endoderm, ectoderm and mesoderm) established and reorganize to
form embryo
- Animal development begins with cleavage (series of mitotic cell divisions) of zygote
- Egg sub divided by cleavages into smaller cells with no cell growth
- Cells resulting from cleavages called blastomeres
- After further cell division and rearrangement of existing cells a solid morula
formed then a hollow structure called blastula
- Blastula only hollow in invertebrates
- Yolky eggs of vertebrates, yolk remains undivided; most cells form embryo layer
on surface of yolk that serve as food for developing embryo
- Gastrulation
- Formation of primitive gut (digestive cavity)
- Formation of embryonic germ layers
 - Germ layers develop into specialized tissues then organs then organ
systems (organogenesis)
- Diploblastic organisms have two germ layers
- Endoderm forms wall of digestive tract
- Ectoderm covers surface of animal
- Triploblastic animals have three germ layers
- Third layer is mesoderm; differentiates into various structures between ectoderm
and endoderm and lines body cavity

Incomplete metamorphosis
- Insects
- Young resemble wingless adults; gradually produce larger wing buds during molts
Complete metamorphosis
- Embryo develops into one or more feeding larval stages that may differ in structure and
function from adult
- Adult body develops from one or more regions of larval tissues
- Larva and adult may have different diets

Hox Genes
- Responsible for determining the general body plan such as number of body segments of
animals, animal head-tail directionality
- First Hox genes to be sequenced were those from fruit fly
- They serve as “master control genes” that can turn on or off large numbers of other genes
- Do this by encoding transcription factors that control the expression of numerous
genes
- All vertebrates have four or more sets of Hox genes while invertebrates have only one set

Features Used to Classify Animals

Radial Symmetry
 - Arrangement of body parts around central axis
- Animals have top and bottom, no left/right, front/back
- When divided, parts will be exactly the same
- Many animals in phyla Cnidaria, jellyfish and sea anemones
- Allows these sea creatures to experience environment equally from all directions
Bilateral symmetry
- Division of animal through midsagittal plane resultin gin two superficially mirror images,
right and left halves (butterfly, crab, human body)
- Animals have head and tail, front and back, right and left sides
- Cephalization
- Allowed for formation of anterior and posterior ends
- Refers to collection of organized nervous system at animals anterior end
- Allowed for streamlined and directional motion
- Uprooted active and controlled directional mobility and increased sophistication
of resource seeking, predator prey relationships

- Animals in Phylum Echinodermata (sea stars, sand dollars, sea urchins)

- Display modified radial symmetry as adults but larval stages initially exhibit
bilateral symmetry

Animal Characterization Based on Features of Embryological Development

 - Most animals undergo germ layer development through gastrulation
- Diploblasts have a non living middle layer between endo and ectoderm
- Animals that display radial, biradial or rotational symmetry
-

- Ectoderm forms outer epithelial covering of body surface, central nervous system
- Mesoderm gives rise to specialized mussel tissues, connective tissues (skeleton
and blood) and other visceral organs (kidneys and spleen)
Coelom
- Occur in triploblasts
- Internal body cavity derived from mesoderm (coelom)
- Fluid filled, houses organs
- Provides cushioning and shock absorption for major organ systems
- Organs housed within coelom can grow and move freely; promotes optimal organ
development and placement
- Provides space for diffusion of gasses and nutrients; body flexibility; improve motility
- Acoelomates
- Triploblasts that do not develop a coelom
- Mesoderm region completely filled with tissue; still have gut cavity
- Ex: Phylum Platyhelminthes (flatworms)
- Eucoelomates (coelomates)
- Animals with true coelom
- True coelom rises entirely withing mesoderm germ layer; lined by an epithelial
membrane
- Ex. annelids, mollusks, arthropods, echinoderms, chordates
- Pseudocoelomates
- Coelom lined partly by mesoderm and partly by endoderm
- “False” coelom
- Ex: Phylum Nematoda (roundworms)
Embryonic Developement of Mouth
- Most animals have openings at both ends of gut (mouth at one end, anus at other)
- Blastopore
- Whe primitive gut forms, the opening that first connects gut activity to outside of
embryo
- One of openings (anus, mouth) develop near or at blastopore site
- Protosomes:
- “Mouth first”
- Mouth develops at blastopore
- Ex: arthropods, mollusks, annelids
- Deuterostomes
- “Mouth second”
- Mouth develops at other end of gut and anus develops at site of blastopore
- Ex: chordates and echinoderms
- Differences between Protosome and Deuterostomes
- Method of coelon formation
- Protosomes: coelom formed through schizocoely
- Mesoderm usually product of specific blastomeres (migrate into
interior of embryo and form two clumps of mesodermal tissue)
- Within each clump, cavities develop and merge to form follow
opening of coelom
 - Undergo spiral cleavage (cells of one pole of embryo are rotated,
misaligned)
- Determinate cleavage
- Developmental fate of each embryonic cell already
determined
- Given cell does not have ability to develop into another cell
type
- Deuterostomes
- Coelom forms through enterocoely
- Mesoderm develops as pouches that are pinched off from
endoderm tissue
- Pouches eventually fuse and expand to fill space between gut and
body wall giving rise to coelom
- Undergo radial cleavage (cleavage ax3es are either parallel or
perpendicular to polar axis)
- Indeterminate cleavage
- Cells are not fully committed at early stage to develop into
specific cell types

Animal Phylogeny
 - Metazoa divided into
- Eumetazoa
- Animals with true differentiate tissues
- Subdivided into radially symmetrical animals (Radiata) and bilaterally
symmetrical animals (Bilateria)
- Porifera (sponges) and Placozoa
- Animals that do not have true differentiated tissues

- Similarities between feeding cells of sponges (choanocytes) and choanoflagellate protists

have been used to suggest that Metazoa evolved from common ancestral organism that
resembled modern colonial choanoflagellates

Linking Choanoflagellates to animals

- Collar cells in sponges (animals) closely resemble choanoflagellates
- Cadherin proteins, previously thought to be unique to animals (promoting cell
adhesion) have been found in choanoflagellates

- Bilaterally symmetrical animals divided into

- Deuterostomes (chordates and echinoderms)
- Protosomes (ecdysozoans and lophotrochozoans)
- Ecdysozoa includes:
- Nematodes and arthropods
- Characteristic: physiological process of exoskeleton
molting followed by “stripping” of other cuticular layer
(ecdysis)
- Lophotrochozoans
- Some phyla characterized by larval stage caller trochophore
layer
 - Other phyla characterized by presence of feeding structure
called lophophore

Evolutionary History of Animal Kingdom

Precambrian Animal Life

- Time before Cambrian period known as Ediacaran Period (635 -543 million years ago)
- No living representatives of Ediacarian species
- Believed that early animal life (Ediacaran biota) evolved from protists

- Ancient fossils from South Australia (650 million years ago) marked transition between
the Cryogenian period and Ediacaran period
- Ediacaran fauna consisted of sessile (attached) animals; many of which may have been
benthic osmotrophs or sliding animals feeding on microbial mats
- Many scientists believe no life prior to Ediacaran period; animals evolved during the
Cryogenian period
The Cambrian Explosion on Animal Life
- Species during Cambrian period (542-488 million years ago) include body forms similar
to those living today
- Cambrian period marks most rapid evolution of new animal phyla and animal diversity
- Cambrian explosion: rapid diversification of animals that appeared during Cambrian
period
- Documented by the “Burgess Shale” in the Canadian Rockies
- Animals resembling echinoderms, mollusks, worms, arthropods and chordate arose
during this period
- One of most dominant species during this period was trilobite (similar to horseshoe
crabs); arthropod that was among first animals to exhibit sense of vision
- Fauna consisted of many invertebrate phyla that survive today
- Vertebrate fish became dominant aquatic predators