“Experimental Studies on Echinoderm Eggs.” (1894)

In the summer of 1893, Thomas Hunt Morgan experimented with the eggs of two species of Echinoderm (marine animals typically recognized by their radial symmetry, like sea urchins or sea stars). The first marine organism he studied was Arbacia punctulata, more commonly known as the purple sea urchin. Purple sea urchins were abundant, though their abundance has fluctuated through the years, and were commonly found off the coast near Woods Hole. The second organism, Asterias forbesii, commonly known as the sea star, was also abundantly available. While others at the MBL and elsewhere were merely observing the normal process of development in these marine animals, Thomas Hunt Morgan was beginning to experiment. He was finding ways to understand normal development works by putting living things together in abnormal ways.

In this experiment with Echinoderm eggs, for examples Thomas Hunt Morgan cross-fertilized using the gametes of individuals from two different marine species of the same Echinoderm phylum. In one experiment, he crossed the eggs of Asterias with the sperm of Arbacia. In this experiment, he found that fertilizing sea star eggs with sea urchin sperm resulted in an embryo that would segment, as in normal development, but would do so at a much slower rate than observed in a normally fertilized embryo of either species. Although the crossed embryos would develop until the gastrulation stage, they would typically die shortly thereafter. Morgan noted that Oscar Hertwig and Theodor Boveri had also done similar kinds of experimental work in Europe, notably Boveri’s 1889 work crossing Sphaerechinus eggs with Psammechinus sperm. Like Boveri, Morgan found that the crossed embryos expressed a morphology unlike either the starfish or the sea urchin, an intermediate morphology. On the one hand, this is an example of the introduction of early experimentalism in American biology, and on the other it was a form of both comparison and replication. Morgan experimented with local varieties of organisms that he knew were similar in kind to those that Hertwig and Boveri used from the Mediterranean.

Suggested citation
Cohmer, Sean. 2017. "Using Biodiversity." MBL History Project digital exhibit. http://history.archives.mbl.edu/exploring/exhibits/using-biodiversity
Bibliography

Survey and Collecting

Report Upon the Invertebrate Animals on Vineyard Sound and Adjacent Waters

  •  Verrill, Addison Emery and Sidney Irving Smith. Report Upon the Invertebrate Animals on Vineyard Sound and Adjacent Waters. 1873.
  •  -- A biological survey of the waters of Woods Hole and vicinity
  •  Sumner, Francis B. "The Biological Laboratory of the Bureau of Fisheries at Woods Hole, Mass. Report of Work for the Summer of 1904." (1905): 566-572.
  •  Sumner, Francis Bertody, Raymond Carroll Osburn, Leon Jacob Cole, and Bradley Moore Davis. A biological survey of the waters of Woods Hole and vicinity. Vol. 31. Govt. Print. Off., 1913.
  •  -- Methods for obtaining and handling marine eggs and embryos
  •  Costello, Donald P., and Catherine Henley. Methods for obtaining and handling marine eggs and embryos. Marine Biological Laboratory, 1957.

Experiment

  •  Morgan, Thomas Hunt. “Experimental studies on echinoderm eggs.” Anat. Anz. 9 (1893): 141–52.
  •  Morgan, Thomas Hunt. "A Study of Metamerism." Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science 37 (1895): 395.

On Regeneration

  • Morgan, Thomas Hunt. "An Analysis of the Phenomena of Organic 'Polarity'." Science 20 (1904): 742–8.
  • ———. "An Attempt to Analyze the Phenomena of Polarity in Tubularia." Jour. Exp. Zool. 1 (1904): 587–91.
  • ———. "Experimental Studies of the Internal Factors of Regeneration in the Earthworm." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 14 (1902): 562–91.
  • ———. "Experimental Studies of the Regeneration of Planaria Maculata." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 7 (1898): 364–97.
  • ———. "The Factors That Determine Regeneration in Antennularia." Biol. Bull. 2 (1901): 301–5.
  • ———. "Further Experiments on the Regeneration of the Appendages of the Hermit-Crab." Anat. Anz. 17 (1900): 1–9.
  • ———. "Further Experiments on the Regeneration of the Tail of Fishes." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 14 (1902): 539–61.
  • ———. "Further Experiments on the Regeneration of Tissue Composed of Parts of Two Species." Biol. Bull. 2 (1900): 111–9.
  • ———. "Further Experiments on the Regeneration of Tubularia." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 13 (1902): 528–44.
  • ———. "Growth and Regeneration in Planaria Lugubris." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 13 (1901): 179–212.
  • ———. "The Internal Factors in the Regeneration of the Tail of the Tadpole. (with S. E. Davis)." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 15 (1902): 562–91.
  • ———. "Notes on Regeneration." Biol. Bull. 6 (1904): 159–72.
  • ———. Regeneration. Biology Series.  New York: Columbia Univ., 1901.
  • ———. "Regeneration and Liability to Injury." Zool. Bull. 1 (1898): 287–300.
  • ———. "Regeneration and Liability to Injury." Science 14 (1901): 235–48.
  • ———. "Regeneration in Allolobophora Foetida." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 5 (1897): 570–86.
  • ———. "Regeneration in Bipalium." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 9 (1900): 563–86.
  • ———. "Regeneration in Planarians." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 10 (1900): 58–119.
  • ———. "Regeneration in Teleosts." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 10 (1900): 120–34.
  • ———. "Regeneration in the Egg, Embryo, and Adult." Am. Nat. 35 (1901): 949–73.
  • ———. "Regeneration in the Hydromedusa, Gonionemus Vertens.". Am. Nat. 33 (1899): 939–51.
  • ———. "Regeneration in Tubularia." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 11 (1901): 346–81.
  • ———. "Regeneration of Proportionate Structures in Stentor." Biol. Bull. 2 (1901): 311–28.
  • ———. "Regeneration of the Appendages of the Hermit-Crab and Crayfish." Anat. Anz. 20 (1902): 598–605.
  • ———. "Regeneration of the Heteromorphic Tails in Posterior Pieces of Planaria Simplicissima." Jour. Exp. Zool. 1, no. 385–91 (1904).
  • ———. "Regeneration of the Leg of Amphiuma Means." Biol. Bull. 5 (1903): 293–6.
  • ———. "Regeneration of Tissue Composed of Parts of Two Species." Biol. Bull. 1 (1899): 7–14.
  • ———. "Regeneration: Old and New Interpretations." Biol. Lect., Woods Hole, 12th  (1900): 185–208.
  • ———. "Some Factors in the Regeneration of Tubularia." Arch. Entw.-Mech. 16 (1903): 125–54.
  • ———. "Some Problems of Regeneration." Biological Lectures, Woods Hole  (1898): 193–207.
  •  Morgan, Thomas Hunt. "Self-fertilization induced by artificial means." J Exp Zool 1 (1904): 135-178.

Supply and SaleSupply

  • “The Marine Biological Laboratory, Ninth Report for the Years 1896–1899 and Statistics of the Years 1900–1902.” The Biological Bulletin (1902): 173.
  • “The Marine Biological Laboratory, Thirty-Third Report for the Year 1930—Forty-Third Year.” The Biological Bulletin 61 (1931): 13.

Sale

  • Pauly, Phil. Biologists and the Promise of American Life: From Meriwether Lewis to Alfred Kinsey. (Princeton U. Press, 2000): 187.
  • Lipshitz, Howard. “From Fruit Flies to Fallout: Ed Lewis and His Science.” Developmental Dynamics 232 (2005): 529–46.
  • “The Marine Biological Laboratory, Seventieth Report, For the Year 1967—Eightieth Year.” The Biological Bulletin 135 (1968): 72.