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As grazers, sea urchins are keystone species in tropical marine ecosystems, and their loss can have important ecological ramifications. Die-offs of urchins are frequently described but their causesare often unclear, in part because systematic examinations of animal tissues at gross and microscopic level are not done. In some areas, urchins are being employed to control invasive marine algae. Here we describe the pathology of a mortality event in Tripneustes gratilla in Hawaii where urchins were being translocated to control invasive algae. Although we did not determine the cause of the mortality event, our investigation suggests that animals died from inflammation of the test and epidermal ulceration followed by...
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Echinoderms such as urchins are important in marine ecosystems, particularly as grazers, and unhealthy urchins can have important ecological implications. For instance, unexplained mortalities of Diadema sp. in the Caribbean were followed by algal overgrowth and subsequent collapse of coral reef ecosystems. Unfortunately few tools exist to evaluate echinoderm health making management of mortalities or other health issues problematic. Hematology is often used to assess animal health in many animal groups including invertebrates but is seldom applied to echninoderms. We used a standard gravitometric technique to concentrate fixed ceolomocytes from the collector urchin Tripneustes gratilla onto microscope slides permitting...
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A need exists for additional methods to examine cnidaria at the cellular level to aid our understanding of health, anatomy, and physiology of this important group of organisms. This need is particularly acute given that disease is emerging as a major factor in declines of ecologically important functional groups such as corals. Here we describe a simple method to process cnidarian cells for microscopic examination using the model organism Aiptasia. We show that this organism has at least 18 cell types or structures that can be readily distinguished based on defined morphological features. Some of these cells can be related back to anatomic features of the animal both at the light microscope and ultrastructural level....