Local Campaigns (geographically- or taxon-specific)

Geographically- or taxon-specific campaigns aim to facilitate the completion of the taxon list backbone and provide data for comparison with other genotypes. Researchers are encouraged to participate for their taxon or region of experience.

If you are interested in participating in such a geographically- or taxon- specific campaign (also in the ones below) please contact us by e-mail or navigate to our Get involved page.

Some current campaigns include:

Queensland Museum sponge collection: Joint project of the Queensland Museum Biodiversity Program (Brisbane Australia), the Bavarian State Collection for Zoology, the GeoBio-CenterLMU and the Molecular Geo- & Palaeobiology Lab of the LMU Munich with funding of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. QM collaborators: John N.A. Hooper, Merrick Ekins, Kathryn Hall.

Florida Keys, Belize & Bahamas: Collaboration with Sandra Duran, Klaus Rützler & Valerie Paul, see Erpenbeck D, Duran S, Rützler K, et al (2007) Towards a DNA taxonomy of Caribbean demosponges: a gene tree reconstructed from partial mitochondrial CO1 gene sequences supports previous rDNA phylogenies and provides a new perspective on the systematics of Demospongiae. J Mar Biol Ass 87:1563–1570.

Sponges of the Red Sea: Oliver Voigt, Gert Wörheide and Dirk Erpenbeck in collaboration with King Abdulaziz University Jeddah (KAU), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and the Senckenberg Natural History Museum (SMF).
Calcarea: e.g., Voigt O, Erpenbeck D, González-Pech RA, et al (2017) Calcinea of the Red Sea: providing a DNA barcode inventory with description of four new species. 1–26. doi: 10.1007/s12526-017-0671-x
Demospongiae: e.g., Erpenbeck D, Voigt O, Al-Aidaroos AM, et al (2016) Molecular biodiversity of Red Sea demosponges. Mar Pollut Bull 105:507–514. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.12.004

Ross Sea sponges (Antarctica): Sergio Vargas & Gert Wörheide, in collaboration with NIWA (New Zealand), e.g., Vargas S, Kelly M, Schnabel K, et al (2015) Diversity in a cold hot-spot: DNA-barcoding reveals patterns of evolution among Antarctic demosponges (class Demospongiae, Phylum Porifera).

Barcoding of Tetractinellida: Paco Cardenas, University of Bergen, Norway e.g., Cárdenas P, Rapp HT, Schander C, Tendal OS (2009) Molecular taxonomy and phylogeny of the Geodiidae (Porifera,Demospongiae, Astrophorida) - combining phylogenetic and Linnaean classification. Zool Scr 1–18. doi: 10.1111/j.1463-6409.2009.00402.x

Show all
Database News

02-03-2026:
Holotype and other data of Erpenbeck et al. (2026) "Classification of several demosponge (Demospongiae, Porifera) taxa re-evaluated with DNA barcodes of type (and other) specimens" published.

Article here