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World List of Bryozoa
Citation
Bock, P. (2024). World List of Bryozoa. Accessed at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=146142 on yyyy-mm-dd. https://marineinfo.org/id/dataset/3194
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Dedicated website
Availability: Creative Commons License This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Description
A world list of recent and fossil Bryozoa, provided by Philip Bock. The Recent and Fossil Bryozoa Database provides taxonomic information to the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). more

Bryozoa are aquatic colonial animals, which are abundant in modern marine environments, and have been important components of the fossil record. In some places, the skeletal remains are so abundant that the fossils become an important rock-forming material. If you need a common name, then you can call them 'sea mats', 'moss animals' or 'lace corals' for some forms. The majority are marine, although brackish-water and freshwater forms are moderately common.

The word 'colonial' needs more explanation. It is applied to types of animals which reproduce (among other ways) by budding new parts asexually from the original animal. These new additions contain functioning individuals, capable of feeding independently, yet remaining attached to the rest of the the animal. Colonial animals include corals and hydroids, ascidians, graptolites and pterobranchs as well as bryozoans. Additionally, there is debate about coloniality in sponges. Bryozoan colonies have a superficial similarity with corals, but the anatomy of the bryozoan animal is much more complex.

The entire complex is called a 'colony'; the individual functional units can be called 'zooids', although 'polyp' is used for coral individuals, and 'theca' in the case of graptolites.

The Recent and Fossil Bryozoa website, developed and maintained by Philip Bock, contains:

  • a listing of Bryozoa classes and orders
  • a systematic listing of Bryozoa families
  • an alphabetic listing of Bryozoa families
  • an alphabetic index of Bryozoa genera
  • an index to illustrated Bryozoa species and genera
  • a list of colour photographs

Furthermore, the website provides links to other websites on Bryozoa, a link to the International Bryozoology Association (IBA) website, links to IBA conferences, a glossary for the Bryozoa, a list with links to relevant journals, etc. The Recent and Fossil Bryozoa Database provides taxonomic information to the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS).


Scope
Themes:
Biology, Biology > Ecology - biodiversity
Keywords:
Marine/Coastal, Fresh water, Brackish water, Classification, Marine invertebrates, Species, Taxonomy, World Waters, Bryozoa

Geographical coverage
World Waters [Marine Regions]

Temporal coverage
From 1758 on [In Progress]

Taxonomic coverage
Bryozoa [WoRMS]

Parameters
Taxonomy

Contributors
Museums Victoriadata creatortaxonomic editordata managerdata ownerdata provider
Bock, Phil

Related datasets
(Partly) included in:
WoRMS: World Register of Marine Species

Dataset status: In Progress
Data type: Data
Data origin: Literature research
Metadatarecord created: 2012-09-04
Information last updated: 2024-01-11
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