Sponges
The leading source of new marine compounds
Sponge natural products
Our group is investigating the chemistry and biology of possibly the earliest animals to appear on our planet: sponges (phylum Porifera).
Sponges represent today about 9,200 species, of which 161 species are found in Swedish waters and probably more than 300 species in Norwegian waters. Sponges occur worldwide, from the tropics to polar regions, from shallow waters to the abyss. In addition to being important models to understand the evolution of animals, sponges are unquestionably the leading source of new marine compounds, with 200 new sponge metabolites discovered each year.
Using various sources of data such as secondary metabolites, morphology and genetics/genomics, our lab studies the evolution of these animals and aims at discovering sponge natural products, to understand why and how they are produced, and if that could lead to new drugs.
Sponge News
January 2020. We are hosting Julio A. Díaz, a PhD student from the University of the Balearic Islands, to work on deep-sea sponges.
The 11th World Sponge Conference will be held in Bali, Indonesia in 2021.
Deep-sea sponge crude extract
Latest Publications
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Distribution and diversity of 'Tectomicrobia', a deep-branching uncultivated bacterial lineage harboring rich producers of bioactive metabolites
2023
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Long distance dispersal and oceanographic fronts shape the connectivity of the keystone sponge Phakellia ventilabrum in the deep northeast Atlantic
2023
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Aviles Canyon System: Increasing the benthic biodiversity knowledge
2022
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Genetic diversity, gene flow and hybridization in fan-shaped sponges (Phakellia spp.) in the North-East Atlantic deep sea
2022
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Good Practices in Sponge Natural Product Studies: Revising Vouchers with Isomalabaricane Triterpenes
2022
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Oceanographic setting influences the prokaryotic community and metabolome in deep-sea sponges
2022
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Oogenesis and lipid metabolism in the deep-sea sponge Phakellia ventilabrum (Linnaeus, 1767)
2022
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A community perspective on the concept of marine holobionts: current status, challenges, and future directions
2021
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Barrettides: A Peptide Family Specifically Produced by the Deep-Sea Sponge Geodia barretti
2021
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Mitochondrial evolution in the Demospongiae (Porifera): Phylogeny, divergence time, and genome biology
2021
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Systematics of 'lithistid' tetractinellid demosponges from the Tropical Western Atlantic-implications for phylodiversity and bathymetric distribution
2021
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The effects of sampling and storage conditions on the metabolite profile of the marine sponge Geodia barretti
2021
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Water masses constrain the distribution of deep-sea sponges in the North Atlantic Ocean and Nordic Seas
2021
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A community assessment of the demersal fish and benthic invertebrates of the Rosemary Bank Seamount marine protected area (NE Atlantic)
2020
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A Pictorial Guide to the Epibenthic Megafauna of Orphan Knoll (northwest Atlantic) Identified from In Situ Benthic Video Footage
2020
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Poorly known sponges in the Mediterranean with the detection of some taxonomic inconsistencies
2020
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Reproductive Biology of Geodia Species (Porifera, Tetractinellida) From Boreo-Arctic North-Atlantic Deep-Sea Sponge Grounds
2020
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Rock sponges (lithistid Demospongiae) of the Northeast Atlantic seamounts, with description of ten new species
2020
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Sources of C30 steroid biomarkers in Neoproterozoic-Cambrian rocks and oils
2020
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Surface Microornamentation of Demosponge Sterraster Spicules, Phylogenetic and Paleontological Implications
2020
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The Molecular Machinery of Gametogenesis in Geodia Demosponges (Porifera): Evolutionary Origins of a Conserved Toolkit across Animals
2020
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A new deep-water Tethya (Porifera, Tethyida, Tethyidae) from the Great Australian Bight and an updated Tethyida phylogeny
2019
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Buchwald Hartwig diversification of unprotected halotryptophans, halotryptophan containing tripeptides and the natural product barettin in aqueous conditions
2019
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First records of Geodia demosponges from the New England seamounts, an opportunity to test the use of DNA mini-barcodes on museum specimens
2019
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Fueled by methane: deep-sea sponges from asphalt seeps gain their nutrition from methane-oxidizing symbionts
2019
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Heck Diversification of Indole-Based Substrates under Aqueous Conditions: From Indoles to Unprotected Halo-tryptophans and Halo-tryptophans in Natural Product Derivatives
2019
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Integrating morphological and molecular taxonomy with the revised concept of Stelligeridae (Porifera: Demospongiae)
2019
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Molecular study supports the position of the New Zealand endemic genus Lamellomorpha in the family Vulcanellidae (Porifera, Demospongiae, Tetractinellida), with the description of three new species
2019
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Revisions to the Classification, Nomenclature, and Diversity of Eukaryotes
2019
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Demosponge steroid biomarker 26-methylstigmastane provides evidence for Neoproterozoic animals
2018