Commercial sponge fishing in Libya: Historical records, present status and perspectives

Natural bath sponges (genera Spongia and Hippospongia, Porifera, Demospongiae) have been harvested for millennia to be used as aids to beauty and body tools, in traditional and modem medicine as well as in painting. Recently, a series of severe epidemics have affected Mediterranean commercial sponges fostering the overexploitation of remaining fishing grounds. Furthermore, Mediterranean bath sponges attain the highest prices compared to Caribbean or Indo-Pacific ones but little or no correct information on origin is transferred to the final buyer. A complex network of re-selling activities and the lack of labelling make it almost impossible to track the pathway of sponge trade. Some of the finest Mediterranean natural bath sponges come from Libya. Nevertheless, little information on Libyan sponge banks and trade have been available mostly given the former international ban. Under an Italian-Libyan joint-project it was possible to assess the past and present situation of sponge fishing in Libya, roughly covering a period of 150 years. After rather low production in years 1860-1879, average crop exceeded 40 t/year between 1880 and 1929. The peak was recorded in years 1920-1929 (almost 70 t/year on average). Today Libyan sponge fishery and trade are mostly confined to the eastern area of the country. Less than 10 t/year are currently harvested. According to a preliminary SCUBA diving survey along the Libyan coasts, sponges belonging to the order Dictyoceratida appear to be the most conspicuous sessile invertebrates in the investigated areas. Here, sponges belonging to the genera Ircinia and Sarcotragus (commonly defined "wild sponges" with no commercial value) appear to be more abundant than those belonging to the genera Spongia and Hippospongia. Sustainable approaches to the exploitation of this valuable natural resource such as sponge farming are proposed and discussed. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Sponges architecture by colour: new insights into the fibres morphogenesis, skeletal spatial layout and morpho-anatomical traits of a marine horny sponge species (Porifera)

This paper focuses on the skeletal architecture and morphotraits of the Mediterranean horny sponge Sarcotragus spinosulus (Demospongiae, Keratosa, Dictyoceratida, Irciniidae). This special endoskeletal system consists of a dense, variably complex connective architecture, which extends throughout the entire sponge body and is embedded in an abundant jelly-like extracellular matrix (ECM). To investigate the topographic arrangement and micro-morphotraits of these connective structures in detail and by colour, also during morphogenetic processes, histology techniques using light microscopy are essential. New information is provided on the coordinated morphogenetic processes that characterize the growth and assembly of collagenic prototype structures in the matrix of fibrous skeletal elements and drive skeleton remodelling. Our results also highlight some novelties and some remarkable peculiarities of fibrous, filamentous and fibrillar components at the levels of both composition and structure. The morphofunctional significance of skeletal architecture is suggested in the background of the anatomical complexity of S. spinosulus

Analisi di budget impact del biosimilare di pegfilgrastim nel trattamento della neutropenia febbrile in Italia

Introduction: Granulocyte-colony stimulating factors (G-CSFs) can significantly reduce the risk of febrile neutropenia (FN) among certain patients receiving chemotherapy. FN is associated with significant clinical and nonclinical complications. At present, the patent protection of pegfilgrastim (Neulasta®) has expired, and a biosimilar (Ziextenzo®) has been approved. Since the biosimilar price is expected to be lower as compared with the originator's, the present Drug Budget Impact analysis tries to evaluate whether and how much profitable the biosimilar availability will be for the Italian NHS, in terms of cost containment (savings).Methods and Results: The model time horizon extends to five years. The initial overall number of treatments with pegfilgrastim is estimated based on the number of pegfilgrastim packages (assuming a recommended dose of 6 mg is administered after each cytotoxic chemotherapy) and kept constant in time. The model assumes that, year by year, the number of treatments with the originator will partly switch to the biosimilar (according to an uptake rate assumed). The results show that the availability of the biosimilar would provide an €6.4 million cumulated savings to the NHS in the five years.Conclusions: According to the present analysis, the availability of the biosimilar would generate cumulated savings (in five years) as high as €6.4 million for the Italian NHS. (HTA & Market Access

Glycosaminoglycan diversity in marine sponge extracellular matrix

Aim of this paper is to report on a screening on sponge ECM glycosaminoglycan (GAG) diversity. To investigate the heterogeneity of sponge extracellular sulphated glycans, we determined their content and distribution in some Mediterranean and Caribbean species. To focus on biological and morpho-functional roles of these molecules in the sponge ECM some selected species were considered as models to investigate the topographic distribution of GAGs in sponge body according with the different architecture of specialized regions

Effects of Agelas oroides and Petrosia ficiformis crude extracts on human neuroblastoma cell survival

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Biodiversity of Sardinian marine caves: sponge fauna = Biodiversità delle grotte marine della Sardegna: la fauna a poriferi

This paper focuses on a faunistic study on sponges from three submerged caves of the Marine Protected Area of Capo Caccia-Isola Piana. Results contribute to the assessment of biodiversity of the scarcely known Sardinian Sea

An Early Pleistocene interglacial deposit at Pingorsuit, North-West Greenland

At the Pingorsuit Glacier in North-West Greenland, an organic-rich deposit that had recently emerged from the retreating icecap was discovered at an elevation of 480 m above sea level.This paper reports on macrofossil analyses of a coarse detritus gyttja and peaty soil, which occurred beneath a thin cover of till and glacifluvial deposits. The sediments contained remains of vascular plants, mosses, beetles, caddisflies, midges, bryozoans, sponges and other invertebrates. The flora includes black spruce, tree birch, boreal shrubs and wetland and aquatic taxa, which shows that mires,lakes and ponds were present in the area.We describe an ewextinct water wort species Elatineodgaardii.The fossils were deposited in a boreal environment with a mean July air temperature that was at least 9°C higher than at present. The fossil assemblages show strong similarities with others from Greenland that have been assigned an Early Pleistocene age, and we suggest a similar age for the sediments found at the margin of the Pingorsuit Glacier. At the Pingorsuit Glacier in North-West Greenland, an organic-rich deposit was discovered at an elevation of 480 m above sea level. The sediments contained remains of vascular plants, mosses, beetles, caddisflies, midges, bryozoans,sponges and other invertebrates. The fossils were deposited in aboreal environment with a mean July air temperature that was at least 9°C higher than at present

How to survive and persist in ephemeral water bodies?: the case of sponges (Porifera: Spongillina)

Ephemeral water bodies are subjected to unforeseeable and extreme fluctuations of environmental conditions constraining biodiversity values. Although data are fragmentary and scattered in the literature sponges are known to be able to colonize temporary/intermittent water bodies

The oldest birotule-bearing freshwater sponges from the Upper Cretaceous–lower Paleocene Deccan volcanic-associated sediments of India

A new fossil occurrence of freshwater sponges (Porifera: Demospongiae) is reported from the Deccan volcanic associated Naskal intertrappean locality, deposited in an interval of <100 kyr across the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary. This is the oldest record of siliceous fossil birotule spicules (gemmuloscleres) belonging to asexual resting stages typical of the order Spongillida. The analysis supports the ascription of these fossils to the family Palaeospongillidae. The diagnosis and description of Longibirotula Pronzato and Manconi gen. nov. and its type species Longibirotula antiqua Manconi and Samant sp. nov. from the Naskal intertrappean is based on skeletal and gemmular spicular morphotraits. The findings have provided evidence of the presence of diversified groups of freshwater sponges during the Late Cretaceous on the Indian subcontinent and Gondwanaland. From the biogeographic context, the findings track the evolutionary trends of the oldest continental sponges in the Asian and Australasian/Insular Pacific regions