Absorbent and yellow and … mobile? Sea sponges on the move in Arctic Ocean
A new study suggests that sea sponges are moving across the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, which challenges the idea that these creatures are primarily immobile.
Previous research has shown that sponges can make limited movements in a laboratory setting, but this is the first time sea sponge trails have been observed in the ocean and attributed to sponge movement.
The researchers hypothesize that the sponges are moving to find food or disperse juveniles, although further research is needed before conclusions can be drawn.
Sea sponges don’t move. At least, that’s what a lot of people used to think about these aquatic invertebrates. But a new study has upended this assumption, and pushed and prodded scientific thought into a new direction.
Sponges Leave Mysterious Trails, Possibly Not As Immobile As Previously Thought
KEY POINTS
Video evidence shows trails of spicules leading to living sponges
This suggests that sponges may actually be more active than we think
Are sponges really immobile creatures? A team of researchers found evidence that they may actually be more mobile than people may think.
Sponges in their larva stage are known to be quite mobile but they become sessile once they reach adulthood. This means that they stay on a particular spot and settle there, Cell Press explained in a news release, adding that sponges don t even have muscles or organs that they can use to move around.
Credit: AWI OFOBS team, PS101
The aquatic animal known as the sponge is often described as entirely sessile: once they ve settled in a spot and matured, they aren t generally thought of as moving around. But, according to a new study in the journal
Current Biology on April 26 in which researchers describe mysterious trails of light brown sponge spicules (spike-like support elements in sponges) across the Arctic seafloor that isn t always so. We observed trails of densely interwoven spicules connected directly to the underside or lower flanks of sponge individuals, suggesting these trails are traces of motility of the sponges, the researchers, led by Teresa Morganti of the Max Planck Institute of Marine Microbiology and Autun Purser of the Alfred Wegener Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, write. This is the first time abundant sponge trails have been observed in situ and attributed to sponge mobility.