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A common garden of Halichondria sponges: taxonomic revision of Northeast Pacific Halichondriidae reveals many cryptic introduced species

Turner, Thomas1; Morrow, Christine2; Picton, Bernard3; Goodwin, Claire4; Thacker, Robert5

Published Nov 06, 2025 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.bvq83bkk6

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Abstract

Sponges (phylum Porifera) possess biochemical, cellular, and physiological traits with valuable biotechnical applications. However, our ability to harness these natural innovations is limited by a classification system that does not fully reflect their evolutionary history. In this study, we uncover numerous cryptic species within the genus Halichondria that are morphologically indistinguishable from the well-known H. panicea. Many of these species have habitat preferences and geographic distributions that strongly suggest they have been dispersed by human activity. Most of these species are broadly sympatric with their closest relatives, and these overlapping distributions allow us to use patterns of DNA variation to infer reproductive isolation between clades in nature. With reproductively isolated species thus delineated, we can use DNA states as taxonomic characters to formally describe them. Though much remains to be learned about these newly discovered species, the natural "common gardens" of introduced sponges in California, New York, and other locations provide opportunities to test hypotheses about their diversification in future work.