[Coral-List] Cryptic species of giant barrel sponge is taking over Florida's reefs

[Pawlik, Joseph]

Hello, Colleagues,

My collaborators and I have a paper just released in Marine Biology that reports a cryptic species of the giant barrel sponge, Xestospongia muta, is responsible for most of the rapid increase in abundance of this species on Florida's reef track.

Deignan, L.K, Pawlik, J.R., López-Legentil, S. 2018. Evidence for shifting genetic structure among Caribbean giant barrel sponges in the Florida Keys. Marine Biology 165:106  DOI: 10.1007/s00227-018-3355-6

We had previously determined that X. muta had increased in abundance by 122% during the period 2000-2012:

McMurray, S.E., Finelli, C.M. and Pawlik, J.R. 2015. Population dynamics of giant barrel sponges on Florida coral reefs. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 473: 73-80  DOI: 10.1016/j.jembe.2015.08.007

Much of that increase was due to the enhanced recruitment or reproduction of one of two cryptic species of X. muta, and that highly successful cryptic species is NOT the one that had previously been dominant!
Our results suggest that the ongoing changes to Florida's reefs have altered the relative success of the co-occurring cryptic species of giant barrel sponges living there.

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph R. Pawlik
Frank Hawkins Kenan Distinguished Professor of Marine Biology
Dept. of Biology and Marine Biology
UNCW Center for Marine Science
5600 Marvin K Moss Lane
Wilmington, NC  28409
Office:(910)962-2377; Cell:(910)232-3579
Website: http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/index.html
PDFs: http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/pubs2.html
Video Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/skndiver011
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