Synopsis Sponges on the Belize Barrier Reef were drastically diminished in 2 mortality events during a 6-year period. Patterns in mortality and recovery were revealed by detailed records of assemblage dynamics, in the form of 8 full censuses between June 2006 and July 2012. All sponges on a set of shallow patch reefs were mapped, identified, and measured for volume at yearly or more frequent in...

Marine sponges are ubiquitous colonizers of shallow, clear-water environments in the oceans (1, 2). Sponges have emerged as significant mediators of biogeochemical fluxes in coastal zones by virtue of respiring organic matter and facilitating both the consumption and release of nutrients (3, 4). Sponges gain their nutrition through filtering out plankton and organic detritus and through uptake ...

Artefacts which occur during the processing of small biopsy specimens can cause sufficient tissue distortion to impair interpretation and can be a considerable source of nuisance. Triangular artefacts were noted in renal and liver biopsy specimens which were caused by foam sponges in embedding cassettes. Scanning electron microscopic examination of the sponges showed they comprised a mesh of sc...

Marine sponges are a rich source of bioactive metabolites that can potentially be used as lead compounds to treat various human diseases. Due to the difficulty in obtaining a steady supply of such metabolites, few of these compounds have reached the clinical trials stage. Sponge sea ranching is one of the most promising methods to overcome this bsupply problemQ. The Red Sea sponge Negombata mag...

Introduction Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) consisting of graphene sheets wrapped in concentric tubes have been explored for a number of applications. An established method of producing these CNTs is through a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process where xylene is decomposed and used as a carbon source. The xylene used is a mixture of three isomers: ortho-, meta-, and para-xylene. A pr...

Ultralight cellular sponges offer a unique set of properties. We show here that solvent uptake by these sponges results in new gel-like materials, which we term spongy gels. The appearance of the spongy gels is very similar to classic organogels. Usually, organogels are formed by a bottom-up process. In contrast, the spongy gels are formed by a top-down approach that offers numerous advantages ...

Sponges are a useful source of bioactive natural products. Members of the family Mycalidae, in particular, have provided a variety of chemical structures including alkaloids, polyketides, terpene endoperoxides, peptides, and lipids. This review highlights the compounds isolated from Mycalid sponges and their associated biological activities. A diverse group of 190 compounds have been reported f...

Marine sponges are major habitat-forming organisms in coastal benthic communities and have an ancient origin in evolution history. Here, we report significant accumulation of polyphosphate (polyP) granules in three common sponge species of the Caribbean coral reef. The identity of the polyP granules was confirmed by energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and by the fluorescence properties of the ...

An understanding of ctenophore biology is critical for reconstructing events that occurred early in animal evolution. Toward this goal, we have sequenced, assembled, and annotated the genome of the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi. Our phylogenomic analyses of both amino acid positions and gene content suggest that ctenophores rather than sponges are the sister lineage to all other animals. Mnemiop...

the aim of this study was to evaluate the reproductive efficiency of short and long term treatment with progestagens in addition to pregnant mare serum gonadotropin (pmsg) in arabian ewes during the non-breeding season. a total of 56 ewes were divided into three groups: in group i vaginal sponges (60 mg medroxy progesterone acetate; map) were applied and removed after 6 days; in group ii, vagin...