Cover image: Complex life-histories occur throughout marine invertebrate taxa, with larval stages being small and usually occupying different habitats than the adults into which they metamorphose do. How marine life-histories evolve depends in part on the development and ecology of the larval stages. Invertebrate larval forms, in their great variety, inspire hypotheses on metazoan evolution, life-history evolution, population dynamics, dispersal, and functional morphology. This collage shows photomicrographs of various marine invertebrate larvae, including several studied by the late Larry McEdward. Upper row, left to right: nonfeeding larva of the sea star Pteraster tesselatus, feeding cyphonautes larva of the bryozoan Membranipora, veliger larvae of an unidentified gastropod snail. Lower row, left to right: feeding brachiolaria larva of the sea star Pycnopodia helianthoides, feeding pluteus larva of the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, unhatched tadpole larva of an unidentified sea quirt.
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