Zootaxa 20 years: Phylum Porifera

Abstract

The peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa has accelerated the rate of sponge (Porifera) species discoveries in 289 peer-reviewed papers published between 2002 up until the end of 2020, describing 725 new species, six new subspecies, 27 new genera, four new subgenera, and 123 new species and genus names needed to resolve existing homonyms. Zootaxa has been the most prolific of all taxonomic journals in its contributions to describing new taxa of Porifera in modern times. This present article analyses these taxonomic contributions over the past 20 years of Zootaxa, including their trends and highlights pertaining to sponge publications.

Zooming into the sponge microbiome in the omics era

“…Sponges are members of the phylum Porifera (from Latin porus, pore and fero, to bear) and among the most primitive multicellular organisms (Metazoa) (Schutze et al, 1999). Dating back to the Precambrian (Turner, 2021), sponges are true survivors that have evolved into key constituents of marine benthic ecosystems distributed globally from polar to tropical habitats (Hooper et al, 2021). Recent studies support the 'Porifera-first' hypothesis which places sponges as the sister group of all other animals.…”