Department of Biology and Marine Biology and Center for Marine Science, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, North Carolina 28409, USA; email:
Ann Rev Mar Sci. 2020 Jan 3;12:315-337. doi: 10.1146/annurev-marine-010419-010807. Epub 2019 Jun 21.
With the decline of reef-building corals on tropical reefs, sponges have emerged as an important component of changing coral reef ecosystems. Seemingly simple, sponges are highly diverse taxonomically, morphologically, and in terms of their relationships with symbiotic microbes, and they are one of nature's richest sources of novel secondary metabolites. Unlike most other benthic organisms, sponges have the capacity to disrupt boundary flow as they pump large volumes of seawater into the water column. This seawater is chemically transformed as it passes through the sponge body as a consequence of sponge feeding, excretion, and the activities of microbial symbionts, with important effects on carbon and nutrient cycling and on the organisms in the water column and on the adjacent reef. In this review, we critically evaluate developments in the recently dynamic research area of sponge ecology on tropical reefs and provide a perspective for future studies.
随着热带珊瑚礁中造礁珊瑚的减少，海绵已成为不断变化的珊瑚礁生态系统的一个重要组成部分。海绵看似简单，但在分类学、形态学以及与共生微生物的关系方面具有高度的多样性，是自然界中新型次生代谢物的最丰富来源之一。与大多数其他底栖生物不同，海绵具有破坏边界流的能力，因为它们将大量海水泵入水柱。由于海绵的摄食、排泄和微生物共生体的活动，当海水通过海绵体时会发生化学转化，这对碳和营养物质的循环以及水柱中的生物和相邻的珊瑚礁都有重要影响。在这篇综述中，我们批判性地评估了热带珊瑚礁海绵生态学这一最近充满活力的研究领域的发展，并为未来的研究提供了一个视角。
