During the last 30 years there has been considerable research interest in fossil and living brachiopods, generating some, as yet, unanswered questions about these marine invertebrates. This volume brings some of these questions before zoologists and paleaontologists where they will be discussed and set within, or contrasted with, pre-existing knowledge.
Introduction; Apatite varieties in Recent and fossil linguloid brachiopod shells; Chemico-structural differentiation of the organocalcitic shells of rhynchonellate brachiopods; A TEM investigation of modulated microstructure in recent and fossil articulate brachiopod shells from New Zealand; The acrosome reaction of an Inarticulate Brachiopod Lingula Anatina spermatozoa; Brachiopod Larval Setae - a Key to the Phylum's Ancestral Life Cycle?; Variation in the Loops of Two Recent Species of Liothyrella (Brachiopoda;Terebratulida) from New Zealand and South Orkney Islands; Shell Morphology and Geographical Distribution of Neocrania (Brachiopoda, Recent) in the Eastern North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea; Developmental and Settlement Characteristics of the Antarctic Brachiopod Liothyrella Uva (Broderip 1833); Embryonic Shells of Devonian Linguloid Brachiopods; Global Surface-Water Circulation and the Main Features of Brachiopod Biogeography; Fundamental Differences in External Spine Growth in Brachiopods; Advances in Molecular Studies; Brachiopod Molecular Phylogeny Advances; Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution of Long-Hooped Brachiopod; Phylogenetic Relationships of Brachiopods within the Metazoa based on Mitochondrial Amino Acid Seuence Analyses; The Phylogenetic Position of Brachiopods Inferred from Mitochondrial Gene Orders; Genetic Differentiation of Terebratella Sanguinea in the New Zealand Fjords: a Dispersal Barrier in the Marine Environment?; Phylogeny and Evolution; Functional Morphology of Articulatory Structures and Inplications for Patterns of Musculature in Cambrian Rhynchonelliform Brachiopods; Early Silurian Stricklandiid Brachiopod Evolution in Eastern North America; Post-Palaeozoic Rhynchonellida (Brachiopoda): Classification and Evolutionary Background; Radiations and Extinctions of Atrypide Brachiopods: Ordovician-Devonian; Trends in Athyridide Diversity Dynamics; The Systematic Position of some Upper Permian Terebratulide Genera; Ancestry and Hecterochronic Origin of Brachiopods of the Superfamily Megathyridoidea (Order Terebratulida): A Case of Natural Selection for Equatorial Dwarfism; Thecideide Phylogeny, Heterochrony, and the Gradual Acquisition of Characters; Incorporating Startigraphic Data in the Phylogenetic Analysis of the Rhynchonelliformea; Ecology and Palaecology; Brachiopods of the Isca Submarine Cave: Observationsduring Ten Years; Brachiopod/Crinoid Associations in the Late Cenozoic of the Antillean Region; Pragian-Emsian Brachiopod Communities of the Faou Formation (Massif Armoricain, France); Palaeological Interpretation of the Brachiopod faunas of the Bardahessiagh Formation (Middle Caradoc), Pomeroy, Co; Tyrone, N; Ireland; Biostratigraphy and Palaeobiogeography; Palaeolatitudinal Distribution Patterns of Hogher Rhynchonelliformean Brachiopods in the Early Ordovician; Distribution and Diversity of Ordovician Articulated Brachiopods in the East Baltic; The Orthide Platystrophia in the Ordovician and early Siluri