Intresting Read About Sponges
- Thread starter sharrison
- Start date
Very interesting, thanks. 
ourmanflint
New member
I do like my sponges even more now!
Thanks
Thanks
Joe Pusdesris
New member
"energy that nobody else can use [dissolved organic carbon] into energy that everyone can use"
Doesn't bacteria do roughly the same thing?
Doesn't bacteria do roughly the same thing?
greenbean36191
Premium Member
Yes, and bacteria are probably more useful to most filter feeders than are choanocytes. This work may have important implications for carbon budgets of deposit feeders like worms, cucumbers, and "pods" but it's not big news for photosynthetic corals, which generally aren't C-limited anyway and have never been noted to include significant number of choanocytes in their diets.
Joe Pusdesris
New member
I do not know if I would consider changing the form maintaining. Especially since organic carbon is so easily controlled by respiration and the use of a skimmer.
CLINTOS
New member
The word is that sponges can replace the skimmer by breaking down/using organic's while leaving food in the aquarium same as a algae turf scrubber be on the look out for advancement's in the long run between the 2 organics and inorganics are taken care off while FOOD is left in
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I don't think organic carbon is easily controlled by a skimmer even though they do export some of it. So does gac. It's just interesting that sponges convert dissolved inorganic carbon to exportable or consumable organics.
Although algae exports nuttrients it adds organics so I don't see how an atf is relevant to the discussion on sponges.
Although algae exports nuttrients it adds organics so I don't see how an atf is relevant to the discussion on sponges.
Joe Pusdesris
New member
I think the only dissolved inorganic carbon is CO2. Pretty sure he meant oraganic.
Just wandering, who are the major consumers of choanocytes? :twitch:
greenbean36191
Premium Member
Probably deposit feeders and bacteria. There's a reason no one realized before that sponges were sloughing off all of these choanocytes- they weren't showing up in the diets of the more well-studied critters like corals.
Second, algae are generally considered sources of DOC, not sinks. They take up DIC and leak out DOC. There's no shortage of users of DIC in our tanks though, including corals.
Third, sponges only get part of their C budget from DOC. Most are voracious predators of bacterioplankton. Removing bacterioplankton is definitely removing food, since that's the staple of most coral diets.
Fourth, skimmers and TAS are forms of nutrient export. Sponges are nutrient recyclers. They take DOC and turn it into POM and POM into DIN. In other words, they poop and pee just like any other animal. You still need another form of nutrient export to remove their poop and pee. The only way they export nutrients is if you periodically harvest and remove biomass from them.
First, I wasn't aware that excess DOC was generally a problem in our systems- hence sugar/vodka/vinegar (DOC) dosing to alleviate carbon limitation.
Second, algae are generally considered sources of DOC, not sinks. They take up DIC and leak out DOC. There's no shortage of users of DIC in our tanks though, including corals.
Third, sponges only get part of their C budget from DOC. Most are voracious predators of bacterioplankton. Removing bacterioplankton is definitely removing food, since that's the staple of most coral diets.
Fourth, skimmers and TAS are forms of nutrient export. Sponges are nutrient recyclers. They take DOC and turn it into POM and POM into DIN. In other words, they poop and pee just like any other animal. You still need another form of nutrient export to remove their poop and pee. The only way they export nutrients is if you periodically harvest and remove biomass from them.
:eek1: Yes, I meant organic, .Sorry for the mistype. Thanks
I'll report an article I found on Nature.com earlier today:
How the sponge stays slim
One species' rapid cell shedding explains its huge carbon-catching capacity.
Matt Kaplan
CoralThis coral is home to carbon-slurping sponges.E. van Bommel
Biologists have discovered how a reef-dwelling species of sponge can filter enormous amounts of carbon without growing in size.
The sponge Halisarca caerulea can absorb up to two-thirds of its own weight in carbon each day by shedding cells at a rapid rate, according to research by Jasper De Goeij at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research in Texel, the Netherlands, and his colleagues. In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology1, the team proposes that this fast turnover may be a tactic for coping with the toxins and pathogens that are frequently encountered by the filter-feeders in their environment.
H. caerulea is found on tropical reefs in the waters of the Caribbean, and feeds by filtering carbon-rich organic matter from the water. Earlier work by De Goeij had shown that the sponges could absorb prodigious amounts of carbon yet didn't seem to grow in size. "We calculated that a sponge should double in biomass every three days, but found that H. caerulea hardly grows at all," says De Goeij.
Absorbing science
To find out why, De Goeij and his colleagues collected growing sponges and stained them continuously with a chemical that labels actively dividing cells. The team cut samples from the sponge bodies at different time points up to 10 hours after the first exposure and analysed them for signs of the labelling agent.
They found that certain cells that pump and filter water in the sponge divided very quickly "” once every five hours or so1. But adding a second chemical to search for dead cells revealed only a few in the chambers, which left them with a puzzle: the sponge wasn't growing, but the cells didn't seem to be dying off.
SongeEach day, H. caerulea absorbs up to two-thirds of its weight in carbon.E. van Bommel
De Goeij was stumped until he gave a presentation on the sponge's impressive cell division to a group of cancer researchers. They immediately recognized the rapid division behaviour as being very similar to that of the human gastrointestinal tract. Cells in the epithelium of the colon are replaced every 12"“24 hours by rapid proliferation and then shedding. "Once we looked at the sponge tissue with the human colon in mind, we found massive amounts of shedding," says De Goeij.
Other marine biologists are surprised by the find. "Nobody has looked at cell sloughing in sponges like this before," says Malcolm Hill, a marine ecologist who specializes in sponge evolution at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
Filter-feeding frenzy
De Goeij and his colleagues suggest that the rapid growth and shedding of the cells may be an evolutionary response to the harsh conditions in which H. caerulea grows. To survive in the nutrient-sparse Caribbean Sea, the sponge must filter vast quantities of water, which is likely to increase its exposure to toxins and pathogens. Rapid shedding might prevent such problematic materials from building up and damaging the filtering system, De Goeij says.
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"Now that we know this, we need to look at other sponges to see whether this is a general phenomenon or just an idiosyncrasy of this particular species," says molecular palaeobiologist Gert Wörheide of Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.
Hill believes that sponge biology could reveal useful information that is relevant to human diseases. "If this proves to be more than just the behaviour of one odd species, then studying the ways that sponges control cell growth could provide insight into controlling abnormal cell growth like cancer," he says.
*
References
1. De Goeij, J. M. et al. J. Exp. Biol. 212, 3892-3900 (2009). | Article
How the sponge stays slim
One species' rapid cell shedding explains its huge carbon-catching capacity.
Matt Kaplan
CoralThis coral is home to carbon-slurping sponges.E. van Bommel
Biologists have discovered how a reef-dwelling species of sponge can filter enormous amounts of carbon without growing in size.
The sponge Halisarca caerulea can absorb up to two-thirds of its own weight in carbon each day by shedding cells at a rapid rate, according to research by Jasper De Goeij at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research in Texel, the Netherlands, and his colleagues. In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology1, the team proposes that this fast turnover may be a tactic for coping with the toxins and pathogens that are frequently encountered by the filter-feeders in their environment.
H. caerulea is found on tropical reefs in the waters of the Caribbean, and feeds by filtering carbon-rich organic matter from the water. Earlier work by De Goeij had shown that the sponges could absorb prodigious amounts of carbon yet didn't seem to grow in size. "We calculated that a sponge should double in biomass every three days, but found that H. caerulea hardly grows at all," says De Goeij.
Absorbing science
To find out why, De Goeij and his colleagues collected growing sponges and stained them continuously with a chemical that labels actively dividing cells. The team cut samples from the sponge bodies at different time points up to 10 hours after the first exposure and analysed them for signs of the labelling agent.
They found that certain cells that pump and filter water in the sponge divided very quickly "” once every five hours or so1. But adding a second chemical to search for dead cells revealed only a few in the chambers, which left them with a puzzle: the sponge wasn't growing, but the cells didn't seem to be dying off.
SongeEach day, H. caerulea absorbs up to two-thirds of its weight in carbon.E. van Bommel
De Goeij was stumped until he gave a presentation on the sponge's impressive cell division to a group of cancer researchers. They immediately recognized the rapid division behaviour as being very similar to that of the human gastrointestinal tract. Cells in the epithelium of the colon are replaced every 12"“24 hours by rapid proliferation and then shedding. "Once we looked at the sponge tissue with the human colon in mind, we found massive amounts of shedding," says De Goeij.
Other marine biologists are surprised by the find. "Nobody has looked at cell sloughing in sponges like this before," says Malcolm Hill, a marine ecologist who specializes in sponge evolution at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
Filter-feeding frenzy
De Goeij and his colleagues suggest that the rapid growth and shedding of the cells may be an evolutionary response to the harsh conditions in which H. caerulea grows. To survive in the nutrient-sparse Caribbean Sea, the sponge must filter vast quantities of water, which is likely to increase its exposure to toxins and pathogens. Rapid shedding might prevent such problematic materials from building up and damaging the filtering system, De Goeij says.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Now that we know this, we need to look at other sponges to see whether this is a general phenomenon or just an idiosyncrasy of this particular species," says molecular palaeobiologist Gert Wörheide of Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.
Hill believes that sponge biology could reveal useful information that is relevant to human diseases. "If this proves to be more than just the behaviour of one odd species, then studying the ways that sponges control cell growth could provide insight into controlling abnormal cell growth like cancer," he says.
*
References
1. De Goeij, J. M. et al. J. Exp. Biol. 212, 3892-3900 (2009). | Article
^Hopefully that summary was a little useful for someone out there...
One thing that the article made me think about was that the use of sponges as a carbon capturing system like vodka dosing etc is that they may prevent the expansion of a monoculture of bacteria which may eventually damage the biodiversity of your filter. So...you stick a 300 g sponge in your tank and you're getting 100 g of carbon export via the free floating cells captured by your skimmer. Thats a lot of carbon and it is pretty much worry free.
One thing that the article made me think about was that the use of sponges as a carbon capturing system like vodka dosing etc is that they may prevent the expansion of a monoculture of bacteria which may eventually damage the biodiversity of your filter. So...you stick a 300 g sponge in your tank and you're getting 100 g of carbon export via the free floating cells captured by your skimmer. Thats a lot of carbon and it is pretty much worry free.
