Porifera

By Michael Fretz, Patrick Heslip, Jenna Beales

Mesoamerican Barrier-Reef and Poriferas Effects

Starts in Yucatan, Mexico and goes for 250 km southward to the Gulf of
Honduras
This reef contains a great variety of habitats: mangrove islands, seagrass
meadows, and patch reefs in its lagoons
Sponges stand out on this reef because of their ubiquity, range of colors, rich
species and biomass, and ecological importance
Some of the ecological work that they do is bioerosion, silica and nutrient
cycling, symbiosis, and mutualism
There is so much diversity within this reef

Cell Kinetics of the Marine Sponge Halisarca caerulea Reveal Rapid Cell Turnover
and Shedding
shows an extremely high proliferation, a short cell cycle and lots of cell
shedding
this combination of attributes has not been observed in any other multicellular
organism
the length of the sponge cell cycle in vivo is very similar to that of unicellular
organisms in culture
live in low nutrient waters - force these organisms to filter large amounts of
water and capture those nutrients efficiently
high cell turnover = a useful strategy for the sponge, preventing permanent
damage to the sponge because of environmental stress
sponge maintains its body mass + keeps its food uptake system updated by

The Fretz - Where The Hell are These Things

...high numbers in tropical regions, lesser numbers in the colder parts of the
world oceans.
Live in shallow warm water.
Prevalent in: the caribbean, off the coast of the iberian peninsula, the british
isles, and in Indies.

Work Cited
Mike Fretz: Global Diversity of Sponges (Porifera), PLOS ONE, April 27, 2012
http://.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0035105#s5
Patrick Heslip The role sponges play in the Mesoamerican Barrier-Reef Ecosystem, Belize, PubMed, 2012
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22560779
Jenna Beales:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4188633/
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/212/23/3892