User:Orangutan100/Tethyida

Overview of Tethyida

Tethyida (also known as T. aurantium in many ecological publications) is a monophyletic clade of sea sponge in the class Demospongiae. The order Tethyida was created in the year 2015, under a class of sponges called Demospongiae. The creation of the order served to reorganize the Demospongiae classification, which had primarily categorized sponges based on morphological factors including spicule organization. Many molecular studies contested the original Demospongiae classification, proving the existence of convergent evolution and sponge groups derived from separate ancestors. Thus, new clades including Tethyida have been created to better classify the evolutionary pathway of sponges.

Throughout the whole family, Tethyida is represented by tylostyles, styles, and oxeas megascleres which form patterns of tracts which form bouquets of sponge near the surface of the ocean. The Microsclers two different sizes of euasters. The overall classification of Tethyida is as follows:

Biota → Animalia (type of kingdom) → Porifera (Phylum) → Demospongiae (Class of Tethyida) → Heterosclermorpha (Tethyida subclass) → Order of Tethyida

Tethyida has been generally found to be distributed in more shallow and tropical waters, including the coast of Brazil, lower California, and Dry Tortugas. The sponges are normally found either in intertidal zones between high and low tides or in the consolidated infratidal habitats.

The Tethyida order of sponge is made of three separate families: Timeidae Topsent, Hemiasterllidae de Lendenfeld, and Theyidae Gray (also known as Donatiidae Burton). The Time Gray genus is the only valid one of the Timeidae. Timea itself has 56 valid species, a few of which are Timea Parasitica, Timea Curacaoensis, and Timea Stelligera.

Background on sponges

Throughout many studies of marine ecosystems, sponges have played many important roles such as creating and preserving marine habitats, causing biological disturbances, consuming plankton (both bacterial and viral) (Bell 2008). Specifically in the genus Tethya, sponges are known as “puffballs” since they develop in a spherical shape. These sponges are widespread and known in areas like California and Brazil due to this distinct feature and due to their being common.

Brazilian variants of Tethyida

Recently, several genera of Tethyida were found and registered to Brazil; Tethya and Timea were found as the most diverse genera and another genera, Halicometes Topsent, was found to be the rarest genus, having only one species discovered in cold and deep Brazilian waters. A taxonomic identification of the brazilian Tethyida group is challenging since the species found are extremely similar morphologically, which gives rise to questions regarding taxonomy that may be solved primarily using ultrastructural studies. However, this does not apply to ecological differences like the difference between the cold deep water Halicometes Topsent versus the Tethya or Timea. Again however, there is the drawback of such cold water species being rarer and harder to compare.

Californian variants of Tethyida

Multiple Tethyida genuses and species play an important role in California’s kelp forest ecosystem. The most prominent, and studied, genus of Tethyida in California is Tethya,