[OANNES Foro] Global Diversity of Sponges (Porifera)

[Mario Cabrejos]

Global Diversity of Sponges (Porifera)
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0035105
Rob W. M. Van Soest1*, Nicole Boury-Esnault2, Jean Vacelet2, Martin Dohrmann3, Dirk Erpenbeck4, Nicole J. De Voogd1, Nadiezhda Santodomingo5, Bart Vanhoorne6, Michelle Kelly7, John N. A. Hooper8
1 Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2 Aix-Marseille University, Centre d'Océanologie de Marseille, CNRS, DIMAR, UMR 6540, Marseille, France, 3 Department of Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., United States of America, 4 Department of Earth- and Environmental Sciences & GeoBio-Center LMU, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany, 5 Paleontology Department, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom, 6 Flanders Marine Institute - VLIZ, Innovocean Site, Oostende, Belgium, 7 National Centre for Aquatic Biodiversity & Biosecurity, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand, 8 Queensland Museum, South Brisbane, Queensland, and Eskitis Institute for Cell & Molecular Therapies, Griffiths University, Queensland, Australia E-mail: rob.vansoest en ncbnaturalis.nl

Abstract 
With the completion of a single unified classification, the Systema Porifera (SP) and subsequent development of an online species database, the World Porifera Database (WPD), we are now equipped to provide a first comprehensive picture of the global biodiversity of the Porifera. An introductory overview of the four classes of the Porifera is followed by a description of the structure of our main source of data for this paper, the WPD. From this we extracted numbers of all 'known' sponges to date: the number of valid Recent sponges is established at 8,553, with the vast majority, 83%, belonging to the class Demospongiae. We also mapped for the first time the species richness of a comprehensive set of marine ecoregions of the world, data also extracted from the WPD. Perhaps not surprisingly, these distributions appear to show a strong bias towards collection and taxonomy efforts. Only when species richness is accumulated into large marine realms does a pattern emerge that is also recognized in many other marine animal groups: high numbers in tropical regions, lesser numbers in the colder parts of the world oceans. Preliminary similarity analysis of a matrix of species and marine ecoregions extracted from the WPD failed to yield a consistent hierarchical pattern of ecoregions into marine provinces. Global sponge diversity information is mostly generated in regional projects and resources: results obtained demonstrate that regional approaches to analytical biogeography are at present more likely to achieve insights into the biogeographic history of sponges than a global perspective, which appears currently too ambitious. We also review information on invasive sponges that might well have some influence on distribution patterns of the future.



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