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Planar branch systems in colonial suspension feeders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

Frank K. McKinney*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina 28608 and Research Associate, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois

Abstract

Among the various forms developed by marine colonial filter feeders, erect colonial fans have evolved in representatives of several phyla. Branches are relatively narrow, evenly spaced from one another, proliferate by bifurcation, and in most colonies continue from their point of origin to the distal margin of the colony. Their narrowness and uniform placement is apparently related to filling an area with multiple tentacle bells of similar size. The major architectural problem for such a colonial suspension feeder seems to be construction of a sheet composed of narrow branches such that water may be filtered as it flows through the sheet, between branches.

The simplest form of the filtration sheets is a uniformly expanding wedge, in which new branches originate at regular intervals from the point of origin of the wedge. Variation in rate of addition of new branches results in more complex forms, such as paraboloids, flaring fans, spirals, and highly folded sheets.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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References

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