SponGES_Deep-sea Sponge Grounds Ecosystems of the North Atlantic; an integrated approach towards their preservation and sustainable exploitation

SponGES is a research and innovation project funded under the H2020 Blue Growth BG1 call aimed at “Improving the preservation and sustainable exploitation of Atlantic marine ecosystems”.

Its overarching goal is to develop an integrated ecosystem-based approach to preserve and sustainably use deep-sea sponge ecosystems of the North Atlantic. Its consortium, an international and interdisciplinary collaboration of 19 European and North American research institutions, environmental non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, will focus on one of the most diverse, ecologically and biologically important and vulnerable marine ecosystems of the deep-sea - sponge grounds – that have received very little research and conservation attention to date.

Over the course of four years, from March 2016 - Feb 2020, SponGES will:
1 - Strengthen the knowledge-base on North Atlantic sponge ground ecosystems by investigating their distribution, diversity, biogeography, function and dynamics; 
2 - Improve innovation and industrial application by unlocking the biotechnological potential of these ecosystems;
3 - Improve the capacity to model, understand and predict threats and impacts and future anthropogenic and climate-driven changes to these ecosystems;
4 - Advance the science-policy interface and developing tools for improved resource management and good governance of these ecosystems from regional to international levels across the North Atlantic.