Marine Invertebrate Physiology and Ecology

Cnidarians—the group encompassing jellyfish, corals, sea anemones, and hydras—occupy a pivotal position in animal evolution as close relatives of the ancestor from which all complex nervous systems and body plans emerged. Researchers study how these animals organize their genomes, deploy signaling pathways like Wnt to pattern their bodies, and maintain populations of stem cells capable of continuous regeneration, treating cnidarians as living windows into the deep molecular history of multicellular life. On the ecological side, understanding what drives jellyfish bloom events—sudden population explosions that can disrupt fisheries and coastal ecosystems—has become increasingly urgent as ocean temperatures shift. Open questions remain about how cnidarian neural networks, which lack a centralized brain, achieve coordinated behavior, and how their diverse arsenal of toxins evolved at the molecular level.

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Keywords

Cnidarian EvolutionJellyfish BloomsGenomic OrganizationNeural SystemsWnt SignalingStem Cells