SPONGE PECULIARITIES AND THEIR IMPACT ON GENERAL BIOLOGY AT THE THRESHOLD OF 2000
Abstract
A survey of sponge research trends from 1870 to 2000 shows a turning point around 1970, with a growing expansion in number of papers, the rise of new fields such as ecology and the explosion of the new sector of applied research in the chemistry of natural products. Sponge research has had a major impact on general biology after the acknowledgement that sponges evolved early from a common ancestor with other animals. Sponge peculiarities, with the lack of tissues and organs and of well defined nervous and muscle systems, represent a key point to understand further animal evolution and their changes in organization. A look to the future of sponge science shows the need for an extension of biological and genetic molecular research but also of basic knowledge coming from taxonomy and ecology. The here analyzed sponge research trends show that these sectors are in expansion also today.Downloads
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2018-05-22
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