Answer:
The properties of this connective tissue are mutable for a short period of time, under neural control, which provides certain mechanical advantages, which include the ability to maintain various postures without muscular effort; that is, it allows Echinoderms to change the consistency of the body, this is useful to escape predators or crawl along the seabed.
Step-by-step explanation:
Echinoderms comprise the marine organisms known as starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers and sea lilies. These present, for the most part, benthic habits and are distributed from intertidal environments to deep bottoms and at different latitudes. They have a mutable collagenous tissue that allows them to change the consistency of the body, that is, they can rapidly change their stiffness and is involved in processes such as fission and autotomy. Some echinoderms quickly switch back and forth between being soft and stiff, which helps crawl along the seabed. Others twist only once from stiff to soft, letting a starfish cut off one of their arms to escape a predator, that is, they can drop an arm when attacked by a predator. When this happens it is called autotomy or autoamputation and the nervous system tells the mutable collagen tissue near the base of the arm to disintegrate. The wound heals and then the arm grows back, a process that can take weeks to months, depending on the species.