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Models of flow through sponges must consider the sponge tissue

Nature volume 603, pages E23–E25 (2022)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 23 March 2022

The Original Article was published on 21 July 2021

arising from G. Falcucci et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03658-1 (2021).

The Venus flower basket E. aspergillum is well known due to its beautiful lattice-work structure. The internal skeleton that underlies this structure is formed of glass, which persists long after the animal has died, and consequently many specimens are available in museums for study. Unlike other studies that focus on the mechanical properties of the skeleton6, Falcucci et al.1 aimed to study the “fluid dynamic performance of the deep-sea glass sponge E. aspergillum in its actual living conditions, reproduced via in silico experiments.” Unfortunately, instead of using a model of a living sponge for their simulation, the authors omitted the sponge tissue and used only the highly porous bare skeleton.

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Fig. 1: Drawings of the soft tissues of the glass sponge Euplectella aspergillum Owen.
Fig. 2: Natural flow through the glass sponges Acanthascas sp. and Farrea occa 

References

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Acknowledgements

We thank the captain and crew of the CCGS JP Tully and the pilots of the Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility for their assistance in collecting the video and the images in Fig. 2a.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Sally P. Leys, Eugueni Matveev & Pablo Aragonés Suarez

  2. Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, San Jose State University, Moss Landing, CA, USA

    Amanda S. Kahn

  3. National Institute of Aquatic Resources and Centre for Ocean Life, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark

    Seyed Saeed Asadzadeh & Thomas Kiørboe

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark

    Poul S. Larsen & Jens H. Walther

  5. Computational Science and Engineering Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Jens H. Walther

  6. The Faculty of Marine Science, Ruppin Academic Center, Michmoret, Israel

    Gitai Yahel

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  1. Sally P. Leys
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Contributions

All authors contributed to developing the ideas presented herein and to writing this article. All authors approved the final version submitted.

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Correspondence to Sally P. Leys.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Video 1

Visualization of pumping by a glass sponge. A small amount of green fluorescent dye is released on the left side of the tube-shaped sponge Acanthascus sp. at 87-m depth on a glass sponge reef at Malcolm Island, British Columbia, Canada. The dye is drawn through the body wall and is seen exiting from the chimney-like excurrent opening. Movement of dye through the wall is by the action of flagella pumps in the sponge tissues. Green laser dots are 10 cm apart.

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Leys, S.P., Matveev, E., Suarez, P.A. et al. Models of flow through sponges must consider the sponge tissue. Nature 603, E23–E25 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04380-8

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