Summary: | Little is known about the developmental physiology of lar-al forms of antarctic marine invertebrates. At tempera-tures typical of sea water in McMurdo Sound (-1.8C), rates ofdevelopment are slow (Pearse, McClintock, and Bosch 1991).The feeding larval stage (pluteus) of the antarctic echinoidSterechinus neumayeri develops approximately 20 days afterfertilization; the juvenile stage is reached by 115 days (Boschet al. 1987).We investigated the biochemical and physiologicalchanges that occurred during the early development of thisspecies. Our approach was to measure the changes in respiration during development tothe feeding larval stage; measure the changes in enzymes involved in aerobicmetabolism; and measure the changes in total protein, total lipid, and spe-cific lipid classes during development.
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