Introduction to the Global Scenario of Marine Sponge Research

Spongology has grown into a discipline attracting a progressively growing population of hundreds of scientists across the world. Several marine sponges harbor dense and diverse microbial communities of huge ecological and biotechnological significance. Sponges represent an evolutionarily divergent group of species with widespread physiological and ecological traits. They also host complex communities of microbial symbionts and thus are ideal model to test functional equivalence and evolutionary convergence that exists in complex symbiont communities across phylogenetically divergent hosts. This review highlighted the largest part of promising research domains in sponge diversity, taxonomy, ecology, cell culture, metagenomics, drug discovery, marine natural products and applications of sponges in biomaterials, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and advanced methodologies used for the bioprospection of marine microorganisms. Genome, transcriptome, and metagenome analysis has revealed extraordinary insights into the sponge symbiotic functions, its ecological role, and biotechnological significance. Recent developments in metagenomics also provided novel avenues in sponge metabolite production. This review has covered the recent findings regarding dynamics of sponges, and several interesting research areas, that we believe are deserving of increased attention.