Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 10, 2026

Shallow Water Paddling Variants of Water Maze Tests in Mice
Published on: June 3, 2013
Sponge community of the western Black Sea shallow water caves: diversity and spatial distribution
Alexander Ereskovsky1,2, Oleg A Kovtun3, Konstantin K Pronin4
1Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d'Ecologie Marine et Continentale (IMBE), Aix Marseille University, CNRS, IRD, Avignon Université, Marseille, France.
Abstract:
Marine caves possess unique biocoenotic and ecological characteristics. Sessile benthic species such as sponges associated with cave habitats typically show a marked zonation from the cave entrance towards the end of the cave. We describe three semi-submerged karstic caves of 50 to 83 m length and 936 to 2,291 m3 volume from the poorly explored cavernicolous fauna of North-East Bulgaria. We surveyed sponge diversity and spatial variability. Eight demosponge species were identified based on morphological and molecular data, of which six are known from the adjacent open sea waters of the Black Sea. Two species, Protosuberites denhartogi van Soest & de Kluijver, 2003 and Halichondria bowerbanki Burton, 1930, are reported from the Black Sea for the first time. The spatial sponge distribution inside the caves is in general similar, but shows some differences in species composition and distribution depending on cave relief and hydrodynamics. The species composition of sponges of Bulgarian caves is found to be different from Crimean caves. An updated checklist of the Black Sea sponges is provided.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Effect of Sea Water on Concrete
Concrete in areas between tide marks,...
Robbers Cave
What are Populations and Communities?
Western Blotting
The technique begins with separating proteins from the sample using sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), followed by protein transfer, immunoblotting, and finally, protein detection.
Detection of Black Holes
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...
Cell Diversity
Multicellular...

