Łukowiak​, Magdalena, Meiro, Gerardo, Peña, Beltrán, Villanueva Guimerans, Perfecto, Corbí, Hugo
Miocene sponge assemblages in the face of the Messinian Salinity Crisis—new data from the Atlanto-Mediterranean seaway
Łukowiak M, Meiro G, Peña B, Villanueva Guimerans P, Corbí H. 2023. Miocene sponge assemblages in the face of the Messinian Salinity Crisis—new data from the Atlanto-Mediterranean seaway. PeerJ 11:e16277 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.16277
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10045/138771
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.16277
ISSN: 2167-8359
Abstract: 
The Messinian Salinity Crisis is considered as one of the most influential Cenozoic events that impacted negatively on the benthic fauna of the Mediterranean area. Changing environmental conditions, including a sharp reduction of water exchange between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, altered the geographical ranges of many organisms, including sponges (Porifera). Here, we report a unique assemblage of isolated sponge spicules from the upper Miocene of southwestern Spain. The newly recognized sponge fauna was inhabiting the Guadalquivir Basin—the corridor between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean at that time. It represents a taxonomically rich sponge community that consisted of members of “soft” and “lithistid” demosponges and hexactinellids. Demosponges are represented by at least thirty-four taxa, while hexactinellids are significantly rarer; only six taxa have been identified. From among eighteen taxa recognized to the species level, at least eight seem to be inhabiting this area to these days; six are recorded from adjacent areas, such as the Western Mediterranean, South European Atlantic Shelf, and the Azores, and three are present in the Red Sea and/or the Northern Atlantic. Intriguingly, some taxa seem to have their closest relatives in distant areas, such as the Indo-Pacific and Japanese waters which suggests that the range of some once widely-distributed populations shrunk after the isolation of the Mediterranean and the Messinian Salinity Crisis, surviving to the present day only in refugia.
Keywords:Messinian, Guadalquivir Basin, Porifera, Tortonian, Strait of Gibraltar
PeerJ
info:eu-repo/semantics/article