demorphological and developmental similarities and differences between Nemerteans and turbellarians.
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Explanation:
Analyses of reproductive biology (including calcium dynamics during fertilization and oocyte maturation), larval morphology and development and developmental genetics have significantly extended our knowledge of spiralian developmental biology. Developmental genetics studies have in addition provided characters useful for reconstructing metazoan phylogeny. Reinvestigation of the cell lineage of Cerebratulus lacteus using fluorescent tracers revealed that endomesoderm forms from the 4d cell as in other spiralians and that ectomesoderm is derived from the 3a and 3b cells as in annelids, echiurans and molluscs. Studies examining blastomere specification show that cell fates are established precociously in direct developers and later in indirect developers. Morphological characters used to estimate the phylogenetic position of nemerteans are critically re-evaluated, and cladistic analyses of morphology reveal that conflicting hypotheses of nemertean relationships result because of different provisional homology statements.