The frondose Rangeomorpha are a poorly understood group of Ediacaran, fractal-like
organisms, with a body plan that is unknown among modern organisms. The first described …

Filter-feeding sponges capture suspended food particles from ambient water, but little is
known about the response of sponges to high food concentrations causing superfluous …

In the aquiferous system of demosponges, the flow into inhalant canals is driven by the
beating flagella of the choanocytes organized in chambers imbedded in the walls and the …

Phagocytosis is a conserved cellular mechanism for food uptake, defense and general
animal-microbe interactions in metazoans. How the discrimination and subsequent …

The evolutionary transition to complex multicellularity in the animal stem lineage remains a
profound mystery. To gain insights into this puzzle, I focused on choanoflagellates, the …

Sponges (Porifera) are basal metazoans that feed on and establish symbiotic associations
with microbes. How sponges discriminate between bacteria to digest as food, incorporate as …

Animals rely on components of the immune system to recognize specific microbes, whether
they are pathogens, food, or beneficial symbionts. However, in marine invertebrates, the …