Definition: Capable of creating a new organism by combining the genetic material of two gametes, which may come from two parent organisms or from a single organism, in the case of self-fertilizing hermaphrodites.
Definition: Colonial organisms are clonal colonies composed of many physically connected, interdependent individuals. The subunits of colonial organisms can be unicellular, as in the alga Volvox (a coenobium), or multicellular, as in the phylum Bryozoa. The former type may have been the first step toward multicellular organisms
Definition: overall repetitive or reflective pattern in the body of one individual of this taxon. eg: bilateral symmetry, rotational symmetry, radial symmetry
Definition: Living in the fluid medium (water or air) but unable to maintain their position or distribution independently of the movement of the water/air mass (adapted from Lincoln et al., 1998).
Definition: Diameter of the egg life stage of this organism. An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, it is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing embryo can survive on its own.
Definition: A landform consisting of loose rock particles such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, cobble, or even shell fragments along the shoreline of a body of water.
Definition: Capable of creating a new organism by combining the genetic material of two gametes, which may come from two parent organisms or from a single organism, in the case of self-fertilizing hermaphrodites.
Definition: A group of species that exploit the same food resources, and/or use the same feeding or foraging methods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_(ecology)
Definition: a sub-group of suspension feeding animals that feed by straining suspended matter and food particles from water, typically by passing the water over a specialized filtering structure
Definition: The institution that holds a type specimen for a given species. The recommended best practice is to use the identifier in a collections registry such as the Biodiversity Collections Index (http://www.biodiversitycollectionsindex.org/).
