Porifera is a San Leandro, California-based company which manufactures proprietary forward osmosis membranes and provides process solutions to a variety of industries.
Arthropoda had the highest number of taxa (161 taxa; mostly Crustacea), followed by Annelida (122; mostly Polychaeta), Mollusca (114; mostly Bivalvia and Gastropoda), Bryozoa (50), Echinodermata (43), Cnidaria, both Anthozoa and Hydrozoa (27), and other phyla with one to three taxa (Brachiopoda, Cephalorhyncha, Entoprocta, Nemertea, Platyhelminthes,
Porifera, Sipuncula).
Global diversity of sponges (
Porifera: Spongillina) in freshwater.
Porifera Research: Biodiversity, Innovation and Sustainability 28:117-121.
The SC component SC65 occurs not only in Deuterostomia (Table 6), but also, possibly, in Coelenterata,
Porifera, and certain Protostomia as well (Table 5).
I use the term spongiomorph because anatomical, biochemical, and genetic evidences reveal that the group of organisms that we all learned as Phylum
Porifera is, in fact, a paraphyletic group; our living sponges are relicts of a radiation of erect water-filterers, an initial diversification of metazoans into a colonial lifestyle.
Phyla Cnidaria (42) and
Porifera (43), the oldest representatives of Animalia harbor speciesspecific microbes essential for their reciprocal survival.
However, to my surprise, sponges (
Porifera) have been the biggest players.
Inspired by the sponges' lightweight but impenetrable defense system, experts from Johannes Gutenberg Universitat (including Muller) and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research built a synthetic version of the creatures' spicules (tiny, prickly splinters) using calcite and silicatein-[alpha], a protein from siliceous sponges that catalyzes the formation of silicon dioxide (silica)--the main ingredient in
Porifera spicules.
Sea sponges (
Porifera) are benthic animals and their common names derive from the porous material that constitutes their bodies.