PHYLUM PORIFERA

➔ Members are sessile.

➔ Either asymmetrical or radially symmetrical.
➔ Body organized around a system of water canals or chambers.
➔ Lack true cellular organization.
➔ Cells are not organized into tissues or organs.
➔ 9000 species
➔ Do not have nerve cells.
➔ Members are called “Sponges”, because their body looks like a sponge.
➔ Sponge species are brightly coloured because of pigments on their dermal cells. Red,
yellow, green, purple and orange sponges are common.

Cell Types:
Three types of cell are their in sponges;
1. Pinacocytes
2. Archaeocytes (Mesenchyme or Amoeboid cells)
3. Choanocytes (Collar cells)

Pinacocytes:
“Thin, flat cells, epithelial-like cells that cover the exterior surface and some interior surface of
a sponge, are called pinacocytes.”
➔ They may be mildly contractile, and their contraction may change the shape of a
sponge.
➔ Some are T-shaped with their cell bodies extending into mesohyl.
➔ Some pinacocytes are specialized into contractile porocytes & myocytes, where
they help to regulate the water flow.
➢ Porocytes and myocytes are contractile cells that surround the canal openings.
Archaeocytes: (Mesenchyme or Amoeboid cells)
“Archaeocytes are amoeboid cells that move in mesohyl and perform various functions.”
➔ They can phagocytize particles at pinacoderm and receive particles for digestion from
choanocytes.
➔ Archaeocytes can differentiate into other types of cells :
● Sclerocytes, secrete spicules.
● Spongocytes, secrete spongin fiber of skeleton.
● Collencytes, secrete fibrillar collagen.
● Lophocytes, secrete large quantities of collagen.

Choanocytes: (Collar cells)

“Collar cells are also known as choanocytes. These special cells are important for filter feeding
in sponges, as well as in reproduction and circulation.”
➔ Sponges primarily feed by collecting suspended particles from water.
➔ Water enters canals through a multitude of tiny incurrent pores (dermal ostia) in the outer
layer of cells, pinacoderm.
➔ Inside the body, the water is directed toward the choanocyte, where food particles are
collected on the choanocyte collar.
➔ The collar comprises many finger-like projections, called microvilli.
➢ A large sponge can filter up to 1500 liters of water each day.

Phylum Porifera - Sponge Skeleton:

➔ The skeleton framework of the sponge can be fibrous or rigid.
➔ The rigid structure consists of calcareous or siliceous support structures called spicules.
➔ The fibrous part comes from collagen protein fibrils in the intercellular matrix of all
sponges.
➔ Collagen comes in several types differing in chemical composition and forms. One form
of collagen is called spongin.
Phylum Porifera - Growth Pattern:
Their growth pattern often depend on;
1. Shape of substratum
2. Direction and speed of water currents
3. Availability of space
➢ Sponges in calm water grow taller and straighter than in rapidly moving water.

Phylum Porifera - Classes:

Classification is based on Spicule form and Chemical composition.
1. Calcispongiae
2. Hexactinellida
3. Demospongiae
Calcispongiae:
➔ Spicules are composed of calcium carbonate.
➔ Spicules are needle-shaped.
➔ Spicules have 3 or 4 rays.
➔ Ascon, leucon or sycon body forms.
➔ Examples: Grantia (Scypha), Leucosolenia

Hexactinellida:
➔ Spicules are composed of silica.
➔ Spicules are often fused into intricate lattice, cup or vase shaped.
➔ Spicules have 6 rays.
➔ Sycon or leucon body forms.
➔ Example: Euplectella (Venus flower basket)

Demospongiae:
➔ Spicules are composed of silica or spongin or both.
➔ Spicules are needle-shaped.
➔ Spicules have 4rays.
 ➔ leucon body forms.
➔ Example: Cliona, Spongilla

Phylum Porifera - Body Forms and Types of Canal System:

There are 3 main designs of sponges, differing in placement of choanocytes.
1. Asconoid system (choanocytes lie in a large chamber, called spongoceal).
2. Syconoid system (choanocytes lie in canals).
3. Leuconoid system (choanocytes occupy distinct chambers).
➢ Life of sponges depends on water currents that choanocytes create.

Asconoid system:
➔ Asconoid sponges draw water inside through microscopic pores by beating large numbers
of flagella on the choanocytes.
➔ These choanocytes line the internal cavity called spongoceal.
➔ As choanocytes filter water and extract food particles from it, used water is expelled
through a single large osculum.
➔ Asconoids occur only in class calcispongiae.

Syconoid system:
➔ Syconoid sponges have a tubular body and single osculum. Spongoceal lining is thicker
and more complex than asconoids.
 ➔ The lining has been folded outward to make choanocytes-lined canals. Folding the body
wall into the canal increases surface area and thus increases surface area covered by
choanocytes. The canals are of small diameter as compared to asconoid spongoceal.
➔ Water enters the body through dermal ostia that lead into incurrent canals. Here food is
ingested by choanocytes.
➔ The beating of the choanocytes flagella forces the used water through internal pores
(apopyles) toward the spongocoel, and then water exits the body through the osculum.

Leuconoid system:
➔ Leuconoid sponge body comprises enormous number of tiny chambers.
➔ Choanocytes line the wall of small chambers where they can filter the water.
➔ Clusters of flagellated chambers are filled from incurrent canals and discharge water
through excurrent canals that eventually lead to osculum.

Phylum Porifera - Feeding:

➔ Sponges non selectively consume food particles like bacteria, detritus, planktonic
organisms sized between 0.1 to 50µm.
➔ Asbestopluma can capture small crustaceans using spicule-covered filament.
➔ Choanocytes filter small suspended food particles in water.
➔ Suspended food is trapped on the collar and moved along microvilli to the base of the
collar, where it is incorporated in the food vacuole by lysosomal enzymes.
 ➔ Partially digested food is passed to amoeboid cells which distribute it to other cells.
➔ Pinacocytes lining incurrent canals may phagocytize larger food particles (50µm).
➔ Moreover, nitrogenous waste removal and gas exchange occur by diffusion

Phylum Porifera - Reproduction:

➔ Monoecious (Male and female sex organs are found in same organism).
➔ No self fertilization (because individual sponges produce eggs and sperm at different
times) (Protandrous).
➔ Certain choanocytes lose their collars and flagella and undergo meiosis to form
flagellated-sperm.
➔ Other choanocytes (and amoeboid cells in the same sponges) probably undergo meiosis
to form eggs.
➔ Eggs are retained in the mesohyl of the parents.

➔ Sperm cells exit one sponge through the osculum and enter another sponge with incurrent
water.
➔ Choanocytes trap sperm and transport them to the egg.
➔ The sponge's early development occurs in mesohyl.
➔ Cleavage of zygote results in formation of a flagellated larval stage.
➔ The larvae break free, and water currents carry the larvae out of the parent sponge.
 ➔ After no more than 2 days of free-swimming existence, the larvae settle to the substrate
and begin to develop into the adult body forms.
➔ Sponges have 2 larval forms:
1. Amphiblastula larvae
2. Parenchymula larvae
Spicules:
➔ Spicules or Sclerites are definite bodies having crystalline appearance and consist of
spines radiating from point.
➔ They have an axis of organic material around which is deposited the inorganic material,
either Calcium carbonate or hydrated silica.

Water Circulation:
➔ Water Circulation through some sponges is at a minimum at sunrise and at a maximum
just before sunset because light inhibits the constriction of porocytes and other cells
surrounding ostia, keeping incurrent canals open.
➔ For example, the rate of water circulation through a sponge can drop suddenly without
any apparent external cause. This reaction can be due only to choanocytes ceasing
activities simultaneously, and this implies some form of internal communication.