RUI: Assessing the Chemical Defenses of Caribbean Sponges

海绵是底栖海洋群落的重要组成部分，尤其是珊瑚礁。它们组织的有机提取物产生了大量不寻常的化合物，这些化合物不参与初级新陈代谢，也没有已知的生物功能。最普遍的理论是，这些化合物令潜在的捕食者反感，但它们也可能保护海绵免受污染或过度生长。这个项目是一项旨在评估加勒比海浮游动物的防御能力的研究计划的继续，这一群体的分类学和化学成分得到了相当好的描述，因为珊瑚礁海绵数量丰富，而且固着，因为它们进化出了复杂的假定的结构和化学防御，并且容易受到多面手和专业捕食者的捕食，它们为检验生态学家提出的关于植物防御机制的基本假设提供了一个有用的群体。

Sponges are important components of benthic marine communities, particularly coral reefs. Organic extracts of their tissues have yielded a wealth of unusual chemical compounds that are not involved in primary metabolism, and have no known biological functions. The most commonly held theory is that these compounds are distasteful to potential predators, but they may also protect sponges from fouling or overgrowth. This project is a continuation of a research program designed to assess the defenses of Caribbean demosponges, a group whose taxonomy and chemistry is fairly well described, Because reef sponges are abundant and sessile, because they have evolved elaborate putative structural and chemical defenses, and are subject to grazing from generalist and specialist predators, they provide a useful group for testing fundamental hypotheses proposed by ecologists about plant defensive mechanisms.