- Industry: Government
- Number of terms: 30456
- Number of blossaries: 0
- Company Profile:
NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce
The ecdyzoans comprise one of the major and largest protostome groups within the animal kingdom. It includes both the arthropods and the nematodes, as well as lesser groups such as rotifers, cephalorhynchs (which include priapulids, kinorhynchs, and loriciferans), and onychophorans. Ecdysozoans build a cuticle, an outer layer of organic material that functions as a lightweight flexible exoskeleton. The name Ecdysozoa refers to the fact that many members of this group regularly shed their cuticle, a process called ecdysis.
Industry:Natural environment
A common seagrass (Zostera marina) distributed from Greenland to Florida that serves as an important habitat for fishes and shellfish. Unfortunately, approximately 90 percent of all eelgrass throughout its range along the Atlantic coast has been destroyed.
Industry:Natural environment
A gradual sinking of land with respect to its previous level; the slow sinking of air, usually associated wit high-pressure areas.
Industry:Natural environment
An allopolyploid; an organism produced by hybridization of two species followed by chromosome doubling.
Industry:Natural environment
An organism which transmits infective organisms from one host to another.
Industry:Natural environment
Coral polyps can be solitary or colonial. Solitary forms remain as a single individual polyp and one corallite.
Industry:Natural environment
In ecological terms, a dynamic equilibrium among the physical and biological factors in an ecosystem or a community; relative homeostasis; unchanging with time. This can be a static state, where nothing changes or a steady state where resource flows occur.
Industry:Natural environment
