Development and planktonic larvae of common benthic invertebrates of the Woods Hole, Massachusetts region : summary of existing data and bibliographic sources

Abstract

The early life histories of more than one-half of the most common benthic invertebrates from the region of Woods Hole, Massachusetts have not been described. In many instances it has not even been determined whether or not the development of a species includes a planktonic stage. Larvae taken from the plankton often cannot be identified to species or even to genus because descriptions of their morphology do not exist; those descriptions that do exist are widely scattered in the biological literature. The extent of information that is available for the identification of larval forms is tabulated here for the most common species within the major benthic taxa in the Woods Hole region: gastropods, bivalve mollusks, decapod and stomatopod crustaceans, cirriped crustaceans, polychaete annelids, and echinoderms. (Not included are amphipods and isopods, and other peracarid crustacea, which do not have planktonic larval stages.)