ArticleScientific reports2016
Coral mucus fuels the sponge loop in warm- and cold-water coral reef ecosystems.
Article in Scientific reports, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed.
- Unveiling in situ oxygen, carbon and nutrient cycling of a sponge-driven biological hotspot in the arctic.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Food web trophic control modulates tropical Atlantic reef ecosystems response to marine heat wave intensity and duration.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- Metre-scale vertical zonation of corals and sponges on a deep-marine cliff reflects trophic resource partitioning.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Characterizing the trophic ecology of herbivorous coral reef fishes using stable isotope and fatty acid biomarkers.PloS one · 2025Article
- Impacts of humic substances, elevated temperature, and UVB radiation on bacterial communities of the marine sponge Chondrilla sp.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2024Article
- Co-occurring nitrifying symbiont lineages are vertically inherited and widespread in marine sponges.The ISME journal · 2024Article
- Respiration kinetics and allometric scaling in the demosponge Halichondria panicea.BMC ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Taurine as a key intermediate for host-symbiont interaction in the tropical sponge Ianthella basta.The ISME journal · 2023Article
- Coral and Seawater Metagenomes Reveal Key Microbial Functions to Coral Health and Ecosystem Functioning Shaped at Reef Scale.Microbial ecology · 2023Article
- Trophic ecology of Angolan cold-water coral reefs (SE Atlantic) based on stable isotope analyses.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Effects of sponge-to-sponge contact on the microbiomes of three spatially competing Caribbean coral reef species.MicrobiologyOpen · 2023Article
- Article
- Mass mortality event of the giant barrel spongePeerJ · 2023Article
- Phenology in the deep sea: seasonal and tidal feeding rhythms in a keystone octocoral.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Sponges sneeze mucus to shed particulate waste from their seawater inlet pores.Current biology : CB · 2022Article
- Article
- Coral mucus rapidly induces chemokinesis and genome-wide transcriptional shifts toward early pathogenesis in a bacterial coral pathogen.The ISME journal · 2021Article
- DNA-stable isotope probing (DNA-SIP) identifies marine sponge-associated bacteria actively utilizing dissolved organic matter (DOM).Environmental microbiology · 2021Article
- A genomic view of the microbiome of coral reef demosponges.The ISME journal · 2021Article
- Contrasting metabolic strategies of two co-occurring deep-sea octocorals.Scientific reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Shallow warm-water and deep-sea cold-water corals engineer the coral reef framework and fertilize reef communities by releasing coral mucus, a source of reef dissolved organic matter (DOM). By transforming DOM into particulate detritus, sponges play a key role in transferring the energy and nutrients in DOM to higher trophic levels on Caribbean reefs via the so-called sponge loop. Coral mucus may be a major DOM source for the sponge loop, but mucus uptake by sponges has not been demonstrated. Here we used laboratory stable isotope tracer experiments to show the transfer of coral mucus into the bulk tissue and phospholipid fatty acids of the warm-water sponge Mycale fistulifera and cold-water sponge Hymedesmia coriacea, demonstrating a direct trophic link between corals and reef sponges. Furthermore, 21-40% of the mucus carbon and 32-39% of the nitrogen assimilated by the sponges was subsequently released as detritus, confirming a sponge loop on Red Sea warm-water and north Atlantic cold-water coral reefs. The presence of a sponge loop in two vastly different reef environments suggests it is a ubiquitous feature of reef ecosystems contributing to the high biogeochemical cycling that may enable coral reefs to thrive in nutrient-limited (warm-water) and energy-limited (cold-water) environments.
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