Abstract
In the marine environment invertebrates constitute the richest source of natural products (Faulkner, 1993), in sharp contrast to the terrestrial habitat where plants yield the largest number of natural products (Luckner, 1990). Several thousand different natural products from marine invertebrates have been identified in the last 25 years (Faulkner, 1993) [the discovery of prostaglandins in the Caribbean gorgonian Plexaura homomalla by Weinheimer and Spraggins (1969) is usually considered as a starting point of marine natural product chemistry]. The frequent occurrence (and in many cases high yields) of natural products in sessile or slow-moving invertebrates such as sponges, bryozoans, or holothurians that often live exposed to potential predators but lack effective morphological defense mechanisms is considered to reflect the evolution of chemically mediated defense mechanisms that protect these soft-bodied organisms from environmental dangers such as predation (Paul, 1992; Proksch, 1994).
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Proksch, P., Ebel, R. (1998). Ecological Significance of Alkaloids from Marine Invertebrates. In: Roberts, M.F., Wink, M. (eds) Alkaloids. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2905-4_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2905-4_16
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