With the completion of a single unified classification, the Systema Porifera (SP) and
subsequent development of an online species database, the World Porifera Database …

Systematics is nowadays facing new challenges with the introduction of new concepts and
new techniques. Compared to most other phyla, phylogenetic relationships among sponges …

We present a consensus classification of life to embrace the more than 1.6 million species
already provided by more than 3,000 taxonomists' expert opinions in a unified and coherent …

Diverse bilaterian clades emerged apparently within a few million years during the early
Cambrian, and various environmental, developmental, and ecological causes have been …

Elucidating relationships among early animal lineages has been difficult, and recent
phylogenomic analyses place Ctenophora sister to all other extant animals, contrary to the …

Background Demospongiae is the largest sponge class including 81% of all living sponges
with nearly 7,000 species worldwide. Systema Porifera (2002) was the result of a large …

Animal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is commonly described as a small, circular molecule
that is conserved in size, gene content, and organization. Data collected in the last decade …

The isolation of the Southern Ocean after the opening of Drake Passage some 23–25 million
years ago, the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the subsequent cooling of the …

Microbial symbiotic communities of marine macro-organisms carry functional metabolic
profiles different to the ones found terrestrially and within surrounding marine environments …

Sponges are one of the critical groups in understanding the early evolution of animals.
Traditional views of these relationships are currently being challenged by molecular data …