Some Like It Fat: Comparative Ultrastructure of the Embryo in Two Demosponges of the Genus Mycale (Order Poecilosclerida) from Antarctica and the Caribbean

0000-0002-7993-1523© 2015 Riesgo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License [4.0], which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The attached file is the published version of the article

Trawl-induced Damage to Sponges Observed From a Research Submersible

Three experimental trawl paths subjected to a single pass with the trawl in 1996 in about 200 m of water on the eastern Gulf of Alaska continental shelf were revisited in July 1997, 1 year post-trawl. Many large, erect sponges, the taxa impacted most significantly, had been removed or damaged by the trawl. Sponges in the cold, deep water of the Gulf of Alaska were slow to recover from trawling effects. These findings contrast with recovery times for shallow, warmwater sponges and may have fishery management implications for cold-water regions

Development of a multilocus-based approach for sponge (phylum Porifera) identification: refinement and limitations

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/For sponges (phylum Porifera), there is no reliable molecular protocol available for species identification. To address this gap, we developed a multilocus-based Sponge Identification Protocol (SIP) validated by a sample of 37 sponge species belonging to 10 orders from South Australia. The universal barcode COI mtDNA, 28S rRNA gene (D3–D5), and the nuclear ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 region were evaluated for their suitability and capacity for sponge identification. The highest Bit Score was applied to infer the identity. The reliability of SIP was validated by phylogenetic analysis. The 28S rRNA gene and COI mtDNA performed better than the ITS region in classifying sponges at various taxonomic levels. A major limitation is that the databases are not well populated and possess low diversity, making it difficult to conduct the molecular identification protocol. The identification is also impacted by the accuracy of the morphological classification of the sponges whose sequences have been submitted to the database. Re-examination of the morphological identification further demonstrated and improved the reliability of sponge identification by SIP. Integrated with morphological identification, the multilocus-based SIP offers an improved protocol for more reliable and effective sponge identification, by coupling the accuracy of different DNA markers

RV POSEIDON Cruise Report POS420 COWACSS Biological observation and sampling of cold-water corals to investigate impacts on climate change

Trondheim – (Kristiansund) – Kiel 08. – (25.) – 30.09.201

Our very own coral reef crisis

The past decade has seen trawling operations expand along the edge of the North East Atlantic continental shelf, as stocks of shelf-dwelling species such as cod have declined. As a substitute, markets are being developed for very strange-looking deep-water species such as roundnose grenadier (Coryphaenoides rupestris), orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus), black scabbard fish (Aphanopus carbo) and deep-sea sharks (Centrophorus squamosus and Centroscymnus coelolepis). The problem is that this expansion in deep-water fisheries goes on unregulated, and it is causing long-term disturbance to seabed habitats and fish stocks alik

Bio-inspired design of ice-retardant devices based on benthic marine invertebrates: the effect of surface texture

Growth of ice on surfaces poses a challenge for both organisms and for devices that come into contact with liquids below the freezing point. Resistance of some organisms to ice formation and growth, either in subtidal environments (e.g. Antarctic anchor ice), or in environments with moisture and cold air (e.g. plants, intertidal) begs examination of how this is accomplished. Several factors may be important in promoting or mitigating ice formation. As a start, here we examine the effect of surface texture alone. We tested four candidate surfaces, inspired by hard-shelled marine invertebrates and constructed using a three-dimensional printing process. We screened biological and artifical samples for ice formation and accretion in submerged conditions using previous methods, and developed a new test to examine ice formation from surface droplets as might be encountered in environments with moist, cold air. It appears surface texture plays only a small role in delaying the onset of ice formation: a stripe feature (corresponding to patterning found on valves of blue mussels, Crassostrea gigas, or on the spines of the Antarctic sea urchin, Sterechinus neumayeri) slowed ice formation an average of 25% compared to a grid feature (corresponding to patterning found on sub-polar butterclams, Saxidomas). The geometric dimensions of the features have only a small (~6%) effect on ice formation. Surface texture affects ice formation, but does not explain by itself the large variation in ice formation and species-specific ice resistance observed in other work. This suggests future examination of other factors, such as material elastic properties and coatings, and their interaction with surface pattern

Separation and Activity Screening of Peptides Derived from Mycale phyllophila

海绵是最原始的多细胞生物，拥有许多在结构上非常多样化的生物活性物质，是最具有药物开发潜力的海洋生物资源。这些生理活性物质常具有抗肿瘤、抗病毒、抗细菌、抗真菌、杀虫、抗炎、神经抑制、神经保护、防污等作用。作为海绵活性物质中重要的组成部分，海绵活性多肽具有分子量小、结构简单、生物效应多样、免疫原性低等特点，具良好的开发潜力。叶片山海绵（Mycalephyllophila）是福建沿海资源较丰富的物种，本研究以叶片山海绵为材料，建立海绵水溶性肽类的分离纯化、活性筛选和结构测定的方法，为规模化开发叶片山海绵肽类资源奠定基础。 本研究建立了一套系统、高效的海绵肽类分离纯化流程，此流程分三个阶段。第一阶段...Sponges are the oldest multicellular organisms in the world, surviving on the earth for at least 600 million years. The long evolution enables sponges to synthesize a wide variety of bioactive substrates, which are provided with functions of anti-tumor, anti-viral, anti-bacterial, neural inhibition, to defend against predators and to prevent microorganism immobilization. As an important component ...学位：理学硕士院系专业：海洋与地球学院_海洋生物学学号：2232012115132

Recovery at Morvin: SERPENT final report

Recovery from disturbance is poorly understood in deep water, but the extent of anthropogenic impacts is becoming increasingly well documented. We used Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) to visually assess the change in benthic habitat after exploratory hydrocarbon drilling disturbance around the Morvin well located at 380m depth in the Norwegian Sea.An ROV, launched directly from the rig drilling the well in 2006 was used to carry out video transects around the well before drilling and immediately after. On a return to the site three years after disturbance a larger survey was conducted with a ship-launched ROV in 2009. Transects were repeated at the disturbed area and random background transects were taken. Visible drill cuttings were mapped for each survey, and positions and counts of epibenthic invertebrate megafauna were determined, revealing a fauna dominated by Cnidaria (45% of total observations) and Porifera (33%).Immediately after disturbance a visible cuttings pile extended to over 100m from the well and megafaunal density was significantly reduced (0.07 individuals m-2) in comparison to pre-drill data (0.23 ind. m-2). Three years later the visible extent of the cuttings pile had reduced in size, reaching 60m from the well and considerably less in some headings. In comparison to background transects (0.21 ind. m-2), megafaunal density was significantly reduced on the remaining cuttings (0.04m-2), but beyond the visible disturbance there was no significant difference (0.15m-2). The investigation at this site shows a return to background densities of megafaunal organisms over a large extent of the area previously disturbed. However a central area, where the initial cuttings pile was deepest, demonstrated reduced sessile megafaunal density which persisted three years after disturbance. Elevated Barium concentration and reduced sediment grain size suggests persistence of disturbance beyond the remaining visibly impacted area which may result in changes to the infaunal communities undetectable by ROV video survey