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No longer Demospongiae: Homoscleromorpha formal nomination as a fourth class of Porifera

  • SPONGE RESEARCH DEVELOPMENTS
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Abstract

Over the past few years, there has been growing interest among the sponge community in the phylogenetic position of the Homoscleromorpha (i.e. within or outside the class Demospongiae). Recent molecular analyses clearly show that the Homoscleromorpha forms a distinct clade separated from the Demospongiae and is composed of two families, Oscarellidae and Plakinidae. Within the currently more widely accepted hypothesis of a monophyletic Porifera, we formally propose here to raise Homoscleromorpha to the class rank (the fourth one). We, therefore, provide a definition and a formal diagnosis. In the supplementary materials, we also present an alternative classification of the Homoscleromorpha, following the PhyloCode.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the organizers of the conference in Girona for this excellent meeting and for giving us the opportunity to contribute to the special volume of Hydrobiologia dedicated to sponges. We are also very grateful to Dr. Nicole Boury-Esnault for stimulating discussions on the PhyloCode. We thank three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. This work was partly supported by bilateral program RFBR-PICS No. 5581. The English language has been revised by Michael Paul.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Jacques Monod, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS UMR 7592, Paris, France

    Eve Gazave

  2. Biologie du Développement, Observatoire Océanologique, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, CNRS UMR 7009, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France

    Pascal Lapébie

  3. Centre d’Océanologie de Marseille, Station marine d’Endoume, Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS UMR 6540-DIMAR, Marseille, France

    Eve Gazave, Pascal Lapébie, Alexander V. Ereskovsky, Jean Vacelet, Emmanuelle Renard & Carole Borchiellini

  4. Département Milieux et Peuplements Aquatiques, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, UMR 7208 “BOrEA”, Paris, France

    Paco Cárdenas

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  1. Eve Gazave
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  2. Pascal Lapébie
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  3. Alexander V. Ereskovsky
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  4. Jean Vacelet
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  5. Emmanuelle Renard
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  6. Paco Cárdenas
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  7. Carole Borchiellini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carole Borchiellini.

Additional information

Guest editors: M. Maldonado, X. Turon, M. A. Becerro & M. J. Uriz / Ancient animals, new challenges: developments in sponge research

Electronic supplementary material

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10750_2011_842_MOESM1_ESM.doc

Supplementary file 1: Alternative phylogenetic classification of Homoscleromorpha based on the draft PhyloCode Version 4c. (DOC 32 kb)

10750_2011_842_MOESM2_ESM.eps

Supplementary Fig. 1: Porifera simplified tree, following the monophyly hypothesis, mentioning the names of the Homoscleromorpha clades and species according to the PhyloCode. Homoscleromorpha species that do not have a PhyloCode definition are in light grey. (EPS 1434 kb)

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Gazave, E., Lapébie, P., Ereskovsky, A.V. et al. No longer Demospongiae: Homoscleromorpha formal nomination as a fourth class of Porifera. Hydrobiologia 687, 3–10 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-011-0842-x

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