Sider

Gert Wörheide's Calcarea & Biodiversity Site - English
URL: http://www.uq.edu.au/~uqgwoerh/

Molecular studies have shown that calcareous sponges (Porifera: Calcarea) might be more closely related to the "higher" Metazoan phyla Ctenophora and Cnidaria than the rest of the Porifera (Hexactinellida/Demospongiae), yet no one has worked on this group in Australasia for over 50 years. First results of my postdoctoral project at the Queensland Museum show that Calcarea are highly specious in tropical Australasia, far more diverse than so far documented in the literature. The world heritage Great Barrier Reef is largely unexplored and undocumented with respect to calcarean biodiversity. This project will document GBR Calcarea using modern multidisciplinary geobiological approaches, and revise the published Australian Calcarea, producing new insights into calcarean and poriferan phylogeny.

[ eng ]