Sponges Real or Man Made?

Basics of Sponges True Animals Many shapes Many colors Large and small Live in water

Sponge Classification Kingdom-Animalia Phylum- Porifera Means “pore-bearer” Classes- based on skeleton bony (Calcarea) glass (Hexactenellida) Spongin protein (Demospongiae) 5000-10,000 species Main Types Leucoslenia Scypha

Sponge Characteristics Sessile organism animal that does not move during its adult life. Filter feeders filter the water for food particles Heterotrophs

Inside a Sponge Incurrent pore cell brings water into sponges body

Epithelial cells thin flat cells for protection and response

- Line the inside of sponge Collar cells (choanocytes) - Line the inside of sponge - Has a flagellum to pull food particles into the collar cell

Amoebocytes (Archaeocytes) - Carry nutrients to other cells - Acts as a transport system - Totipotent – can become other cells

Spicules - hard support system/skeleton - three or six pointed structures - calcium carbonate, silica or spongin

- opening through which water and wastes leave. Osculum - opening through which water and wastes leave.

Sponge Systems Symmetry Support Digestive Circulatory Respiratory none Support Spicules Digestive collar cells amoebocytes Circulatory None Respiratory diffusion through cells Nervous epithelial cells respond to touch Reproductive Asexual Sexual

Asexual Sponge Reproduction Fragmentation - piece breaks off and new sponge grows Budding - new sponge grows off main parent and then breaks off to grow somewhere else

Sexual Sponge Reproduction Hermaphrodites - can produce both sperm and eggs. External Fertilization eggs and sperm are released into the water and fertilization occurs outside the sponges body

Internal Fertilization sperm released and absorbed by another sponge’s amoebocyte cells and transferred to the eggs to be fertilized. Free swimming larva are formed to land somewhere to live.