Creature faces grim future after 545 million years under ocean
The study's lead author explains to Yahoo News Australia details of her discovery.
Tiny microbes that occupy sea sponges and filter nutrients like a liver or kidney could help treat some of the world’s most pressing illnesses. Unfortunately, many of these strange animals are set to disappear from their home ranges, thanks to climate change.
Tropical sea sponges have inhabited the Earth for 545 million years, but researchers from the University of NSW have discovered exposure to a temperature that’s 3 degrees warmer causes their microbe inhabitants to flee.
“A group of microbes known as archaea represented 10 per cent of all the microbes in the healthy sponge. And we could not see it at all in the necrotic sponge,” lead author Dr Emmanuelle Botte said after the report’s release.
While many of the tropical species we know could be in trouble, other species could actually thrive under climate change, while others might shift towards the poles where the water is cooler.
How bad could things get for the sponges?
Water surface temperatures are expected to warm between 1.2 and 3.2 degrees by 2100 but the situation could be much worse as new unfamiliar impacts of climate change like ocean circulation and bushfire smoke cascade.
Heatwaves have already wiped out large numbers of sponges in the Mediterranean and New Zealand. Dr Botte told Yahoo News Australia she tries not to think about how bad the future could get for them.
Her research, published in ISME Communications, suggests after the microbes leave it creates a chemical imbalance in the sponge from poisoning that causes its decay. It’s similar to the relationship between coral and algae.
Sponge decline won’t just impact humans – entire marine ecosystems could also collapse as they decay.
And no one yet knows what happens to the microbes when they leave their homes. They are so small, scientists had to study them by extracting, sequencing and analysing DNA inside an artificial marine environment to detect them leaving the sponge.
Warning to act on climate change to protect oceans
How severe the impacts of climate change on marine environments are, will depend on how government and industry respond now. “We know what we can be heading for. And we know what we need to do if we don't want to get there,” she said.
Disturbing find at bottom of ocean triggers worrying weather prediction
As the world burns, should we continue a slow and measured response to the climate era?
“There is one thing that I can tell you for sure, the ocean nowadays already doesn't look like it did even 50 years ago.
“It has already changed a lot. It will continue to change, it is very likely that coral reefs are going to degrade more, even if we reduce carbon emissions.
“How much it changes is basically up to us.”
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