{"id":600,"date":"2013-01-29T19:39:02","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T00:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/?p=600"},"modified":"2013-01-29T19:39:24","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T00:39:24","slug":"sponges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/2013\/01\/29\/sponges\/","title":{"rendered":"sponges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part of our homework\/classwork for this class was to put together a presentation on a particular organism that is related to Bermuda, and Bruce has asked us to summarize our presentation on the blog so that everyone, not just our class, can learn about them. My presentation was on sponges…<\/p>\n

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Sponges, by definition, are multicellular organisms which have bodies full of pores and channels that allow water to circulate through them. The consist of a jelly-like mesohyl sandwiched between two thin layers of cells<\/p>\n

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most sponges work like chimneys by taking in water at the bottom and ejecting it from the osculum (mouth) at the top. Sponges can control water flow by completely or partially closing the osculum. They usually close the osculum completely when there is too much sand or silt in the water that could cause blockage in the pores.<\/p>\n

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Sponges do not have distinct circulatory, respiratory, digestive, and excretory systems, instead, the water flow system supports all of these functions. They filter food particles out of the water flowing through them .<\/p>\n

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Most sponges are hermaphrodites and reproduce when the water flow carries their sperm from one sponge to another, where it is carried to the egg. Most eggs remain in the sponge until they hatch. Some sponges start sexual reproduction when only a few weeks old, while others wait until they are several years old.<\/p>\n

Most sponges live in temperate regions and live for at most a few years, but some tropical species and perhaps some deep-ocean ones may live for 200 years or more. Most live in quiet, clear waters because their need to avoid sediment stirred up by waves, that can make breathing and feeding difficult (again, by blocking their pores). The greatest number of sponges are usually found on firm surfaces such as rocks, but some can attach to soft sediment by means of a root-like base. They are more abundant but less diverse in temperate waters than tropical waters, possibly because prey are more potent in tropical waters<\/p>\n

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Many of the sponges recorded from Bermuda are actually uncommon, and of the 65 sponge species of Bermuda, 18 are classified as new. There is also literature that suggest fresh-water drainage combined with saltwater is ideal for sponge-growth, which could help explain how the waters near Florida (that connect with many freshwater rivers) are teeming with sponges whereas very similar waters in Bermuda do not have such an abundance of sponges due to the lack of ample freshwater (Bermuda has a serious shortage of freshwater and groundwater).<\/p>\n

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Sources:<\/p>\n

\u2022De, Laubenfels Max Walker. The Porifera of the Bermuda Archipelago.: An Ecological Discussion of the Sponges of Bermuda. London: Zoological Society of London, 1950. Print.<\/div>\n
\u2022http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sponge<\/a><\/div>\n
\u2022http:\/\/www.ucmp.berkeley.edu\/porifera\/porifera.html<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part of our homework\/classwork for this class was to put together a presentation on a particular organism that is related to Bermuda, and Bruce has asked us to summarize our presentation on the blog so that everyone, not just our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":631,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions\/631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/geologyofbermuda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}