Diving into the mechanisms of sponge-microbe-environment interaction
Inauguramos os Encontros Espresso do IIM-CSIC coa visita da investigadora do Institut de Ciències del Mar do CSIC en Barcelona. Lucía Pita falará da simbiose cun exemplo ben especial: as esponxas de mar, as bacterias e o seu medio natural.
(link available on the day)
The "Encontros Espresso" (Espresso Get-Togethers) are a format of talks held at IIM with the aim of getting to know each other better, getting to know better the activity that takes place in our center and exploring the world of marine science, encouraging scientific-technical discussion and strengthening links between groups where both research and technical staff can participate to share their work, experiences and results.
These are events designed specifically for our staff, but everyone is welcome to join in via streaming.
This new format will be held monthly, at 10:00 a.m. in the IIM-CSIC Meeting Room and include complimentary coffee ("Espresso") to promote the smooth flow of communication .
Diving into the mechanisms of sponge-microbe-environment-interactions
"Symbiosis – “living together” – with microbes contributes to animal ecological success and is a source of evolutionary innovation. The animal host and its microbiota form a functional unit called the “holobiont”, which can be regarded as a miniature ecosystem of complex host-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions that result in new functions. Marine Sponges beautifully illustrate the holobiont concept and its implications to understand animal physiology. Sponges appeared on our planet 600-800 million years ago and, with the help of their microbes, this group still persists today and has conquered (almost) all aquatic habitats.
In my talk, I will first introduce the microbial diversity harbored in sponges and how microbial metabolism occurring inside the sponge, coupled with the animal activity, scales up and influences nutrient cycling in the ecosystem. Then, I will focus on our work aiming at revealing the role of sponge immunity as guardian of sponge-microbe interactions. Finally, I will discuss how the holobiont concept has changed our perspective on how marine animals face the environmental stress caused by the climate crisis."
Lucía Pita Galán (ICM-CSIC)
Researcher (Junior Group Leader Fellowship La Caixa) from Biogeoquímica marina, atmósfera y clima group at Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) at Barcelona.
"I am an independent scientist whose research aims at understanding the molecular mechanisms of animal-microbe-environment interactions and their influence in animal health, with particular attention to the immune system. Since 2021 I am funded by the competitive Junior Group leader fellowship by Fundación La Caixa at the Institute of Marine Science (ICM-CSIC, Spain). I study marine sponges, a paradigm of marine symbiosis due to their ancient origin, their complexity, and their role in the ecosystem. As one of the oldest -and still extant animal groups, sponges allow us to uncover the genomic toolkit for animals to interact with microbes in a changing environment. I did my PhD at University of Barcelona (Spain) and then moved to GEOMAR (Germany), first as a postdoc, thanks to the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship, and since 2018 I developed there my own research line as a junior group leader."