Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Ship Time

The seafloor habitat of the Strait of Georgia Basin is a region heavily impacted by transportation, resource extraction and estuarine outflows. Numerous government initiatives identify long-term concerns for ecosystem health in this intensely populated region. Since 2003 several kilometer-long, 5,000 year-old glass sponge reefs have been discovered at 100-200m depths in the Strait of Georgia. Although glass sponges are found world wide, and reefs were abundant in ancient seas, for reasons as yet unknown modern sponge reefs have only been found in continental shelf waters of the Northeast Pacific. Glass sponges are the most ancient group of multicellular animals but are considered largely unchanged over time. Thus study of their physiology, development and ecology can shed light on how early animal body plans arose. In addition, the glass sponge reefs filter vast quantities of water to feed and thereby strongly impact the overlying waters. Our goals are to assess sponge reef health in the Strait of Georgia and to identify key factors involved in growth and maintenance of the sponges and reefs. A detailed understanding of the oceanographic parameters that glass sponges require will allow predictions of reef formation in other regions of modern oceans, as well as historically.