Biodiversity of porifera in Mexico

Abstract

The first records of sponges in Mexico date back to the nineteenth century, being the British naturalist Albany Hancock (1806-1873) the first to cite a sponge in Mexican waters. However, despite this early beginning, it was not until recent decades when the knowledge of sponges has achieved a breakthrough comparable to countries with a tradition in the study of the group. Currently, the sponge fauna of Mexico, considering only the class Demospongiae, consists of 517 species, with 174 of them endemic to Mexico. Just over half of the species (292), are distributed in the Mexican Atlantic, but most of the endemics are from the Mexican Pacific (138 species), indicating this figure the lack of studies on the group in the whole area of the eastern Pacific, and especially on the coasts of South America. It is important to note that the classes Calcarea and Hexactinellida, given the almost total lack of research on them, are not included in this work. During the last decade, coupled with the increase in the knowledge of diversity of sponges of Mexico, functional studies have been conducted, many of them in coral reef ecosystems.