Understanding sponges: Physiology, Oceanography and Genetics
Fig. 1.) Aquaculture of Dysidea avara on horizontal ropes in the Mediterranean.
Sustainable
production: sponge culture to obtain sponge natural products
Culture methods to be developed within SPONGES
include techniques on three different levels of technological complexity:
1. Sea based culture (Fig. 1).
Several relatively easy methods exist for farming sponges in the sea.
These methods will be optimized within this project to enable bulk production
of six economically relevant sponge species.
2. Land-based culture in tanks using natural seawater.
This approach has been used successfully to maintain sponges ex-situ for
long periods of time.
3. Closed land-based culture systems. These are the most challenging techniques to develop in terms of technological complexity, but also the most desired techniques with respect to control of production processes. Hence, a major part of the research efforts within SPONGES will be dedicated to the establishment of these systems, which include both the cultivation of functional sponges in enclosures and the cultivation of sponge primmorphs (cellular aggregates obtained from dissociated cells; Fig. 2) in bioreactors.
The culture techniques to be developed are an integration
of innovative technologies of four European SMEs, including novel strategies
to feed sponges in closed and half-open systems, a unique technology to
control water quality in artificial marine systems, novel spectrometric
sensor technology (and corresponding software) to monitor and control
the system, an in vitro sponge cultivation system (based on primmorphs)
for testing medium design, and specific sponge farming methodologies.
A limited number of (commercially interesting) sponge species will be
used in the project as model species for technology development. Product
formation in these species will be studied in order to optimise productivity
of the culture systems. The culture methods developed will be applied
on an additional number of species, in order to test to what extent these
methods can be considered as generic.
Fig. 2. Primmorphs of Suberites domuncula.
An upgrade of our fundamental understanding of sponges is needed to improve our abilities to farm these animals. In SPONGES, ecological and physiological aspects are studied. The natural habitats of the targeted species will be characterized, in particular with respect to hydrodynamics and the availability of food. Concurrently, effects of water movement on the physiological functioning of sponges, sponge feeding biology (and the role of symbiotic microorganisms therein) and sponge bioenergetics (the enzymatic regulation of ATP-metabolism) are studied in the laboratory using sophisticated methods such as particle imaging velocimetry, ß-imaging and novel enzyme assays. The knowledge obtained will be converted into system engineering and process optimization. In addition, the genetic background of growth and secondary metabolism of sponges are studied in order to rationalize strategies to improve culture techniques.
In order to achieve the main goal - commercial sponge cultivation - the optimized basic procedures need to be up-scaled and validated. This will be done in the second project year, in which it is anticipated to establish a pilot scale production plant for at least one sponge-based product. Market analyses will be executed and business plans will be presented for each individual technique developed as well as for the integrated sponge culture technology.
2007, Porifarma