Sponges transform this material into eatable mucus.” “Some organic matter exists in the water surrounding the coral reef, but most of it is not concentrated enough for other animals to eat. “We also observed fish and other animals feeding off of the sponge mucus as food,” explained study first author Niklas Kornder. Fish hang around the sponges waiting for these strings of mucus to be shed so that they may eat them. What is a sponge’s waste is a fish’s windfall. Every now and then, the sponge goes through a contraction (sneeze) that loosens the strings of mucus and accumulated particulate matter, dispatching them into the water column. They then expel unwanted particles through their pores and these become aggregated in the stringy clumps of mucus.
They actively secrete mucus, often against the direction of water flow, onto their outer surfaces. The researchers used time-lapse videos of sponges to show that these organisms do not simply dispose of waste and unwanted particles with water that flows away through the outlet pores. But both sponge and human sneezes exist as a waste disposal mechanism,” says de Goeij. A sponge sneeze takes about half an hour to complete. “Let’s be clear: sponges don’t sneeze like humans do. While biologists have known about the contraction behavior, the authors of this paper show that these sneezes get rid of materials the sponges cannot use. “Our data suggest that sneezing is an adaptation that sponges evolved to keep themselves clean,” said study senior author Jasper de Goeij, a marine biologist at the University of Amsterdam.
And the sponge does this by undergoing an extended contraction, referred to as a “sneeze.” These waste particles would soon clog up a sponge’s filtration system and so they need to be removed. Under these circumstances it may take in unwanted particles of sediment with its constant inflow of water.
However, a new study that analyzed videos of sponges over extended time periods has identified a special technique that they use to get rid of unwanted material from inside their bodies.Īs one of the oldest multicellular organisms in existence, a sponge spends most of its life stuck to the substratum and cannot move away when conditions become unpleasant. They do not have a nervous, digestive or circulatory system, and remove waste products by releasing them into this same flow of water. Sponges are ancient filter-feeding animals that rely on maintaining a flow of water through their bodies to obtain suspended food and dissolved oxygen.
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