Metazoa - Morphology and Evolution of Animals : A Practical Guide to the Dissection and Comparative Study of Animals

Over the course of evolution, multicellular animals - Metazoa - have successfully colonized every conceivable habitat on our planet, thanks to their ability to survive and adapt under adverse or changing conditions. But how is an animal's body structured to accomplish this? What organs do animals have, how do they perceive their environment, and what is the evolutionary relationship between these seemingly so different organisms?

This volume, designed as a modern practical book, presents the most important body plans of selected animals. It is intended to help all Biology students to recognize and understand the basic body shapes and structures in the respective animal groups, including the main features that have contributed to their evolutionary success, the similarities and differences, and the many different solutions that evolution has come up with for given biological problems.

The authors have consistently used focused, compact text and photographs that not only show the animals' most important external features but also explain the dissection process step by step.

The authors hope that this new book will help all Biology students successfully complete their practical zoology course and gain new insights into the morphology and evolution of animals.

Prof. Dr. Achim Paululat, born in 1961 in Soest, Germany, studied biology, chemistry and education at the University of Münster. After his first state examination, he decided to pursue an academic career and received his doctorate in 1990 under the supervision of Dietrich Ribbert at the University of Münster. During this time, Dr. Paululat was a lecturer at the Pedagogical University of Münster and a freelance guide at the Natural History Museum of Münster. He then moved to the Philipps University of Marburg to work as a postdoc in Prof. Dr. Renate Renkawitz-Pohl's laboratory on the differentiation of muscle tissue in Drosophila. A research internship in the laboratory of Alan Michelson at HHMI, Harvard Medical School in Boston, was funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG). There, he analyzed the asymmetric cell division of muscle progenitor cells. With Dr. Aria Bahniamad, now Professor of Genetics at the University of Jena, he joined the Collaborative Research Center SFB 397 as a junior group leader for an independent research project. After his habilitation in Zoology and Developmental Biology at the University of Marburg, Dr. Paululat was appointed to the chair of Zoology and Developmental Biology at the University of Osnabrück in 2004. As a member of several collaborative research centers (SFB 397, SFB 431, SFB 944, and SFB 1557), as a project leader in international consortia (EU-Myores), and after two terms as dean of the faculty, he is currently devoted to research on genetic and cell physiological processes in cardiogenesis, myogenesis and nephrocyte differentiation in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster. In addition to his research interests, he is particularly interested in field biology. He offers avifaunistic excursions, e.g., to Heligoland, and organizes wet lab and field courses at the Biological Station Roscoff in Brittany (France). Since 2020, Dr. Paululat has been an elected member of the DFG Review Board 203 (Zoology) and served as a co-editor of the German edition of the textbook Campbell Biology.

Prof. Dr. Günter Purschke, born in Hamburg in 1954, studied biology and chemistry at the Georg-August-University in Göttingen. After the first state examination, he received his doctorate in 1984, supervised by Wilfried Westheide. Since his doctoral studies, he has been continuously involved in teaching, first as a student and research assistant, then as a research associate at the University of Osnabrück at the Chair of Systematic Zoology under Wilfried Westheide. After his habilitation in zoology in 1997, he was appointed associate professor in 2002. After holding the chair in this department for 2003/2004, he continues to work in the current Department of Zoology and Developmental Biology under Achim Paululat. His research focuses on the morphology, phylogeny and systematics of annelids. His scientific interests have focused on the structure and evolution of the nervous system and sensory organs, with several studies devoted to eyes and photoreceptors. In addition to numerous original publications, he is co-editor of several scientific books: 2005’s Morphology, Molecules, Evolution and Phylogeny in Polychaeta and Related Taxa (with Thomas Bartolomaeus, Bonn), 2016’s Structure and Evolution of Invertebrate Nervous Systems (with Andreas Schmidt-Rhaesa, Hamburg, and Steffen Harzsch, Greifswald), one volume each, in  2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 (with Markus Böggemann, Vechta, and Wilfried Westheide, Osnabrück), of the Handbook of Zoology, Annelida, each of which contained his review contributions. He has also been an author of Westheide/Rieger Systematic Zoology (Spezielle Zoologie) since its 1st edition in 1996. He has made multiple revisions to the chapters on phylogeny, diversity and evolution of metazoans, including both invertebrates and vertebrates, in the textbook Campbell Biology since the German version was taken over by biologists from Osnabrück, starting with the 8th edition in 2009.