ABSTRACT
The introduction of new technology, as with other branches of science, greatly assisted researchers. Molluscs, like many lophotrochozoans, have few genomic tools with which to target and silence specific genes as is commonly done in the better-known model organisms with well-known and annotated genomes. Studies on the endocrine system and neuroendocrinology are lacking for most groups of molluscs. The emerging clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats genome editing technology will provide a critical new tool for molluscan evolutionary developmental studies. Biological ontologies define the basic terms and relations in biological domains and are used as community reference, as the basis for interoperability between systems, and for search, integration, and exchange of biological data. Moreover, improved communication across the full breadth of biological research would undoubtedly benefit numerous researchers who use molluscs as study organisms, as many of us are perhaps too focused on our own speciality.
