An Anaerobic World in Sponges
By F. Hoffmann, O. Larsen, V. Thiel, H. Rapp, T. Pape, W. Michaelis, J. Reitner. 2005
224 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract Associated microorganisms have been described in numerous marine sponges. Their metabolic activity, however, has not yet been investigated in situ. We quantified for the first time microbial processes in a living sponge. Sulfate reduction rates of up to 1200 nmol cm−3d−1 were measured in the cold-water bacteriosponge Geodia barretti . Oxygen profiles and chemical analysis of sponge tissue and canal water revealed steep oxygen gradients and a rapid turnover of oxygen and sulfide, dependent on the pumping activity of the sponge. Identification of the microbial community with fluorescently labelled oligonucleotide probes (FISH) indicates the presence of sulfate-reducing bacteria belonging to the Desulfoarculus/Desulfomonile/Syntrophus -cluster in the choanosome of this sponge. Analysis of lipid biomarkers indicates biomass transfer from associated sulfate-reducing bacteria or other anaerobic microbes to sponge cells. These results show the presence of an anoxic micro-ecosystem in the sponge G. barretti, and imply mutualistic interactions between sponge cells and anaerobic microbes. Understanding the importance of anaerobic processes within the sponge/microbe system may help to answer unsolved questions in sponge ecology and biotechnology.
Subfields: Biotechnology, Immunology, Organic Chemistry
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7d61cfdb08816c64581dea5465b59ef31516fbc4
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Citations in the corpus
- Major bulk dissolved organic carbon (DOC) removal by encrusting coral reef cavity sponges (2008, background): “The discrepancy between total organic carbon uptake and oxygen respiration can be explained by microbial processes like sulfate reduction (Hoffmann et al. 2005), or fermentation (Santavy et al. 1990).”
- Linking abundance and diversity of sponge-associated microbial communities to metabolic differences in host sponges (2007, background): “Recent work has suggested that processes as diverse as methane oxidation (Vacelet et al. 1996), sulfate reduction (HoVmann 2003; HoVmann et al. 2005 ) and dehalorespiration (Ahn et al. 2003) may occur in some sponges.”