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Sponge biodiversity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2007

R.W.M. van Soest
Affiliation:
Zoological Museum of the University of Amsterdam, PO Box 94766, 1090 GT Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]
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Sponges are an integral part of marine benthic communities with a high-impact role in benthic–pelagic coupling processes, as an important source of food for demersal grazers and predators, as hosts of a highly diverse microbial biomass, and as bio-eroders. Sponges provide age-old (hygienic) services to humans and continue to be of interest in modern times as sources of an unprecedented array of useful substances.

Type
Editorial
Copyright
2007 Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom