NOAA discovers nine new sponge species off Alaska — SkimNews
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- NOAA announced on Thursday that nine new deep-sea sponge species were identified in the Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, bringing Alaska's total known sponge species to 232.
- NOAA Fisheries collected the specimens during its annual bottom-trawl surveys, with researchers analyzing samples dating back to 2012 and publishing descriptions in two recent scientific papers.
- Biologist Sean Rooney of NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center said sponges are ecologically vital because, like trees in a forest, they provide complex seafloor structure that creates habitat for commercially important fish and crabs.
- Biologist Meredith Everett of NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center said DNA barcoding is critical for identification because sponges filter-feed and accumulate foreign DNA in their tissues, complicating genetic testing.
- The Trump administration has proposed expanding deep-sea mining for nickel, copper, and other critical minerals, along with additional bottom trawling, in Alaskan waters — moves that environmental groups warn could devastate sponge habitats.
- Cooper Freeman, Alaska director of the Center for Biological Diversity, called bottom trawl fishing "indiscriminately destructive" and said combining it with seafloor mining would "scrape up and devastate life on the bottom of the ocean."
- Some sponge-produced chemicals have shown promise for potential use in cancer treatments, according to researchers cited in the findings.
Why it matters: The discovery grows Alaska's known sponge catalog to 232 species while researchers say hundreds more likely remain undocumented, and it lands as the Trump administration pushes to open those same waters to deep-sea mining and expanded bottom trawling — the very activities ecologists warn could destroy the habitats NOAA just spent more than a decade documenting.
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