due to insufficient time to disperse to it. Probably this argument applies to most
marine groups, so the real advantage is that Jumars and Fauchald know polychaetes.
(^) In their 1979 paper, Fauchald and Jumars presented a functional classification,
mostly based on feeding mode, for the polychaetes, a class consisting of 81 family
groups totaling (up to 1980) roughly 6000 species (now ∼9000). Much of the known
biology of feeding for the entire class was included in a family-by-family review.
They used this to construct a classification of polychaete feeding under three main
aspects.
(^1) Size of particles eaten: microphages vs. macrophages
(^) Microphages eat tiny particles and tend to eat them in bulk. Divided
again by feeding stratum: burrowers, filter feeders and surface deposit
feeders
(^) Macrophages eat large chunks either whole or by removing bites.
Divided again between herbivores and carnivores
(^2) Mobility required for feeding
(^) Sessile: never moving, sometimes not capable of moving
(^) Discretely motile: sometimes moving to get better foraging, but usually
not moving while actually feeding
(^) Motile: moving while feeding
(^3) Mode of ingestion (varies between micro- and macrophages)
(^) jaws (sometimes based on an eversible pharynx)
(^) tentacles
(^) pumping
(^) “X” – special
(^) The overall classification came out as shown in Table ^ 14.1, which is simplified here
from the original, and in Fig. 14.12. While feeding is the basis of the classification,
there is strong correlation with other life functions. Mobile and tubiculous forms, for
example, have different modes of defense against predators, different requirements for
mating, and so on. There are 21 groups with significant “occupation” by kinds of
polychaetes, each group identified by an acronym. For example, BMJ is a burrowing
motile-jawed subclass of microphagic feeders. Fauchald and Jumars call these
“feeding guilds”. Ecologists borrowed the notion of guilds from late-medieval history.
Guilds were the craft unions of the late Middle Ages, such as the tanner’s guild,