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Adaptations of Marine Worms in Antarctica

As I was watching your recent video of a dive, I wondered how old are those giant volcano sponges? Have any of the science team members done any research on the ages of the creatures under the ice? I would imagine with slower metabolisms many of the creatures are quite old.

TMart

Sun, 10/02/2011 - 22:23

Michael League

Hey Tim,Great question and the topic of some discussion with the divers,
particularly with reference to those giant volcano sponges.
Early work on the age of those sponges suggested slower growth rates and
back-calculations placed those sponges in the hundreds of years old
category. However, we have recently observed some good size volcano
sponges growing on human-made objects that we know have only been on the
bottom for decades.
So, the new hypothesis among us is that perhaps the growth rate changes
as the sponges age. Initially, they might grow quite quickly, up to a
certain size and then slow down. This would explain both observations.
It's another interesting example of how every dive produces observations
that cause us to re-examine previous knowledge and evaluate our current
understanding.
Thanks for asking a great question (and for following our expedition)!
Mike