Gonozooid

A gonozooid is any of the reproductive individuals of tunicate, bryozoan, or hydrozoan colonies that produce gametes.[1][2] Gonozooids may play a role in labour division[3] or in alternation of generations.[4] A gonozooid typically has hardly any other function than reproduction, amounting to little more than a motile gonad.

The production of gonozooids amounts to one aspect of certain classes of alternation of generations. In biological terms the various forms are examples of evolutionary strategies and are largely analogous rather than homologous; the gonozooid phases of tunicates and bryozoans, for instance, did not originate from a common ancestor.[5]

  1. ^ Christopher G. Morris; Academic Press (1992). Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology. Gulf Professional Publishing. pp. 945–. ISBN 978-0-12-200400-1.
  2. ^ Hughes, D.J. (1992). "Genotype-environment interactions and relative clonal fitness in a marine bryozoan". Journal of Animal Ecology. 61 (2): 291–306. doi:10.2307/5322. JSTOR 5322.
  3. ^ Sanders, Steven M.; Shcheglovitova, Mariya; Cartwright, Paulyn (2014-05-28). "Differential gene expression between functionally specialized polyps of the colonial hydrozoan Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus (Phylum Cnidaria)". BMC Genomics. 15 (1): 406. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-406. ISSN 1471-2164. PMC 4072882. PMID 24884766.
  4. ^ Terry, Robert M. (March 1961). "Investigations of Inner Continental Shelf Waters off Lower Chesapeake Bay. Part III. The Phorozooid Stage of the Tunicate Doliolum nationalis". Chesapeake Science. 2 (1/2): 60–64. doi:10.2307/1350721. JSTOR 1350721.
  5. ^ Andrey N. Ostrovsky (16 December 2013). Evolution of Sexual Reproduction in Marine Invertebrates: Example of gymnolaemate bryozoans. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 271–. ISBN 978-94-007-7146-8.