Verschiedene Schwammarten

Tireless biological filters of the sea

It used to be, that the classic bath sponge could be found in every bathroom. The round, globular natural balls were popular because, they felt pleasantly soft and could absorb a lot of water. Before the horn sponges were ready for people to use, the collar cells (choanocytes) and the inner support structure had to be removed. This left the elastic sponge skeleton from the silky material that makes up the household sponge. The fact that small, specialized cells once lived in the fine pores would have been unknown to most users at the time.

About 7500 sponge species are known in the seas, with very different appearances and in all sizes. The familiar bath sponge came mostly from the Mediterranean Sea and was brought up from the deep by sponge divers. All sponges in common have a tube-like cavity, through which the water is absorbed, filtered and discharged again. This is accomplished by ciliated cells, which swirl the water in and filter out the existing plankton and other materials. A soccerball-sized sponge processes amazing quantities of water. Up to 3000 litres per day can be cleaned and recirculated. Sponges are the natural, high-performance filter systems of the sea. In contrast, they are not necessarily appreciated in aquaria, as they compete with the technical filter systems and can disrupt the chemical-biological balance considerably.

In a display case in the MEERESMUSEUM the filtering performance of the sponges is explained visually and some sponge species are shown.