RUI: Assessing the Chemical Defenses of Caribbean Sponges

海绵是海底海洋生物群落，特别是珊瑚礁的重要组成部分。 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代谢，也没有已知的生物学功能。 最普遍的理论是，这些化合物对潜在的捕食者来说是令人厌恶的，但它们也可以保护海绵免受污染或过度生长。 这个项目是一个研究项目的延续，该项目旨在评估加勒比海海绵动物的防御能力，这是一个分类学和化学性质相当好的群体，因为珊瑚礁海绵是丰富的和固着的，因为它们已经进化出复杂的假定结构和化学防御，并且受到通才和专业捕食者的放牧，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.