Abstract
Sponges are among the most important sessile organisms ensuring ocean’s health in the habitats where they occur, given the multitude of ecosystem services they provide, such as high biodiversity provision, creation of three-dimensional structures for shelter, food sources, and impact on nutrient and biogeochemical cycles of C, N, and Si. Currently, sponges are among the most threatened sessile organisms by global warming due to temperature-related diseases, posing a high risk to entire ecosystems. Even in the most optimistic of climate change scenarios, sponge abundance and community structure will be severely affected, thus compromising their role in geochemical cycles, and impacting ecosystem function at a global scale. Some of the tools sponges have to fight against population decimation and community structure shifts are recruitment and dispersal, which underpin their resilience to climate change. In my lab, we have extensively worked on the recruitment patterns of sponges, combining molecular, morphological and ecological approaches to understand how sponges maintain, connect and establish their populations, and how to monitor ecosystem services such as biodiversity connectivity. Using genomic and transcriptomic sequences, we have assessed the molecular toolkits necessary to engage in reproduction, from sex determination to gametogenesis and vitellogenesis, and have mapped the expression to the tissue to understand the cellular architecture of sponge reproduction. At the ecological level, we have assessed the differences in fecundity displayed by viviparous/oviparous sponges, and how the dispersal potential of their propagules, together with oceanographic processes, ensure connectivity and maintenance of the sponge population and biomass of sponges in sponge-dominated ecosystems. We have also studied the peculiarities of reproductive strategies displayed by shallow and deep–water sponges, some of which are responsible for their evolutionary routes and ecological adaptations, as well as their connectivity constraints, which affect their resilience and adaptation capacities.
About Dr Ana Riesgo
Ana is a principal investigator based at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales. Her research group studies the evolutionary patterns of marine invertebrates, such as sponges, polychaetes, and nemerteans. Using 'omics approaches they are interested in biological processes like reproduction, gene flow, phylogeny, venom production, and gene transcription.
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