Demosponges from the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge shed more light on the diversity and biogeography of North Atlantic deep-sea sponges

Abstract

In July-August 2004, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge Ecosystems (MAR-Eco) expedition collected Demospongiae (Porifera) from the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) north of the Azores, between 418N and 618N. Demosponges were found at 10 stations, at depths ranging from 753 to 3046 m. Twenty-two species were identified: 17 Tetractinellida, one Polymastiida, one Suberitida, two Poecilosclerida and one Dendroceratida. The study of this material is an opportunity to revise the taxonomy and the North Atlantic distribution of each of these deep-sea species. Some species are particularly rare and poorly known (Tetilla longipilis, Tetilla sandalina, Craniella azorica, Polymastia corticata) and two are new to science: Forcepia (Forcepia) toxafera sp. nov. and Iotroata paravaridens sp. nov. This study suggests that the MAR is not a longitudinal barrier for the dispersal of deep-sea demosponges while on the contrary, the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone (CGFZ) may be a latitudinal border for the dispersal of deep-sea demosponges, due to great depths and currents.

First records of Geodia demosponges from the New England seamounts, an opportunity to test the use of DNA mini-barcodes on museum specimens

“…Spicule measurements and external morphology are perfectly in accordance with previous descriptions from the MidAtlantic Ridge and Madeira (Cárdenas and Rapp 2015;Topsent 1928). Lemon-shaped sterrasters have also been observed in MNHN-DT1298 from Madeira, 2380 m (Topsent 1928).…”

“…Furthermore, spicule measurements are perfectly in accordance with the description of the species (Cárdenas and Rapp 2015;. G. macandrewii was only collected in the Bear Seamount (seamount closest to the continental shelf, Fig.…”

“…Thanks to the revision of North Atlantic Geodia Cárdenas and Rapp 2015;Cárdenas et al 2010;Cárdenas et al 2011), we have solid morphological and molecular knowledge to identify these specimens. Because of the degraded nature of the DNA in these specimens, this study was also an opportunity to test the use of mini-barcodes for sponge species identification.…”

Lithistid Sponges Derived Compounds and Their Importance in Biological Research - A Review

“…Performing various biochemical assays with the lithistid-derived compounds leads to discovery of many other natural products. As derived compounds are natural products, they serve as the better sources for new drugs [40][41][42][43]. The compounds isolated and characterized from marine sources have widely used as an alternative for antibacterial, anticancer, antioxidant, and other purposes [34,46,57].…”

Assessing the Potential of Sponges (Porifera) as Indicators of Ocean Dissolved Si Concentrations

“…De Laubenfels (1936) recognized that the spatial distribution of shallow water sponges is limited by strong environmental barriers (e.g., depth, light or temperature). More recently, the spatial distribution of marine sponges at local scales (e.g., 10 s of km; coral reefs, straits or gulfs) has been correlated to geomorphological features (Przeslawski et al, 2014), sediment properties, depth, distance to the coast, nutrient availability (including dSi), light penetration, hydrodynamics (Huang et al, 2011), deep sea currents (Cárdenas and Rapp, 2015), and biotic factors such as predation or competition for space (Huang et al, 2011;Pawlik et al, 2015;Slattery and Lesser, 2015). In general, these observations are replicated at regional or broader scales (e.g., >>100 km; seas or oceans).…”