Download Domain:Eukaryota Kingdom:Animalia Phylum:Porifera

Domain:Eukaryota
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Porifera
Reporters:
Alconera, Peter Paul
Babala, Arjaylyn B.
I. Introduction to Porifera
Porifera are commonly referred to as sponges.
Most sponges are found in oceans, although
some groups are found in fresh waters such as
lakes. They were the first group of animals that
has specialized cells to do special jobs. However,
the cells are not so advanced as to form tissues.
Sponges live singly or in colonies.
Based on their phylogenetic position, fossil
sponges are among the oldest known animal
fossils, dating from the Late Precambrian
Poriferans don't have mouths; instead, they have
tiny pores in their outer walls through which
water is drawn.
Distinguishing Features:
Sponges constitute the phylum Porifera, and
have been defined as sessile metazoans (multicelled animals) that have water intake and outlet
openings connected by chambers lined
with choanocytes, cells with whip-like flagella.
All known living sponges can remold their bodies,
as most types of their cells can move within their
bodies and a few can change from one type to
another
Sponges' bodies consist of a non-living jelly-like
mass sandwiched between two main layers of
cells
They have no nervous sytems
II. Vital Functions and
Ecology
Vital Functions
Movements
Adults are sessile while larvae are free swimming.
Respiration
A sponge takes in water through its pores and in
more advanced forms, with canals that move the
water to all throughout the sponge. Then the
oxygen from the water is used.
Reproduction
A sponge reproduces by assexually and also sexually.
Life Cycle
Sponges in temperate regions live for at most a
few years, but some tropical species and perhaps
some deep-ocean ones may live for 200 years or
more. Some calcified demosponges grow by only
0.2 millimetres (0.0079 in) per year and, if that
rate is constant, specimens 1 metre (3.3 ft) wide
must be about 5,000 years old. Some sponges
start sexual reproduction when only a few weeks
old, while others wait until they are several years
old.
Ecology
Habitats
Sponges in temperate regions live for at most a
few years, but some tropical species and perhaps
some deep-ocean ones may live for 200 years or
more. Some calcified demosponges grow by only
0.2 millimetres (0.0079 in) per year and, if that
rate is constant, specimens 1 metre (3.3 ft) wide
must be about 5,000 years old. Some sponges
start sexual reproduction when only a few weeks
old, while others wait until they are several years
old.
As Primary Producers
Sponges
with photosynthesizing endosymbionts produce up to
three times more oxygen than they consume, as well
as more organic matter than they consume. Such
contributions to their habits' resources are significant
along Australia 's Great Barrier Reef but relatively
minor in the Caribbean.
Defenses
Many sponges shed spicules, forming a dense
carpet several meters deep that keeps
awayechinoderms which would otherwise prey on
the sponges.They also produce toxins that
prevent other sessile organisms such
as bryozoans or sea squirts from growing on or
near them, making sponges very effective
competitors for living space.
Predation
Sponge flies, also known as spongilla-flies (Neuroptera, Sisyridae),
are specialist predators of freshwater sponges
Bioerosion
The Caribbean chicken-liver sponge Chondrilla nucula secretes
toxins that kill coral polyps, allowing the sponges to grow over the
coral skeletons
Diseases
Caribbean sponges of the genus Aplysina suffer from Aplysina red
band syndrome
Collaborations with other organisms
The relatively large encrusting
sponge Lissodendoryx colombiensis is most common on rocky
surfaces, but has extended its range into seagrass meadows by
letting itself be surrounded or overgrown by seagrass sponges,
which are distasteful to the local starfish and therefore
protectLissodendoryx against them; in return the seagrass
sponges get higher positions away from the sea-floor
sediment.Shrimps of the genus Synalpheus form colonies in
sponges, and each shrimp species inhabits a different sponge
species, makingSynalpheus one of the most
diverse crustacean genera.
III. Taxonomy
Classes of Porifera:
Hexactinellida (glass sponges),
the Demospongia,
and the Calcarea (calcareous
sponges).
Archeocyatha
IV. Uses
By Dolphins
As a tool by bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay
By Humans
Early Europeans used soft sponges for many
purposes, including padding for helmets, portable
drinking utensils and municipal water filters. Until the
invention of synthetic sponges, they were used as
cleaning tools, applicators for paints and ceramic
glazes and discreet contraceptives.
Antibiotic compounds
Sponges have medicinal potential due to the presence
in sponges themselves or their microbial symbionts of
chemicals that may be used to
control viruses, bacteria, tumors and fungi.
V. Evolutionary History
As the basal branch of the metazoans,
poriferans have long been expected to be among
the earliest undoubted animal fossils, those of
the Vendian (or Ediacaran). Until recently,
however, no sponge body fossils had been
identified or described from this fauna. In 1996,
Gehling and Rigby identified and described the
first probable sponge, Paleophragmodictya, from
the Ediacara of Australia. Their specimens
revealed a reticulating net of spicules in the
sponge body wall, reminiscent of that seen in
many hexactinellid sponges.
Fossil sponges differ in size from 1 cm (0.4 inches) to
more than 1 meter (3.3 feet). They vary greatly in
shape, being commonly vase-shapes (such as
Ventriculites), spherical (such as Porosphaera),
saucer-shaped (such as Astraeospongia), pear-shaped
(such as Siphonia), leaf-shaped (such as
Elasmostoma), branching (such as Doryderma),
irregular or encrusting.
Devonian stromatoporoid at Falls of
the Ohio
Tropical tube and encrusting sponges,
Saba.
Fossil sponge from the Cretaceous of England
E-Sources
http://www.mcwdn.org/Animals/Sponges.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/porifera/poriferal
h.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/26502/level2/Proces
s/respir.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponge#Distinguishi
ng_features
Thank You..
Geology is more than a
degree..Its a Lifestyle.