bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/596429; this version posted April 3, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 1 Associated organisms inhabiting the calcareous sponge Clathrina lutea in La Parguera Natural 2 Reserve, Puerto Rico 3 4 Jaaziel E. García-Hernández1,2*, Nicholas M. Hammerman2,3*, Juan J. Cruz-Motta2 & Nikolaos V. 5 Schizas2 6 * These authors contributed equally 7 1University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, Department of Biology, PO Box 9000, Mayagüez, PR 8 00681 9 2University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, Department of Marine Sciences, Marine Genomic 10 Biodiversity Laboratory, PO Box 9000, Mayagüez, PR 00681 11 3School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Gehrmann Laboratories, Level 8, 12 Research Road, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia 13 14 15 Nikolaos V. Schizas,
[email protected], FAX: 787-899-5500 16 17 Running Head: Infauna of the calcareous sponge Clathrina lutea 18 19 20 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/596429; this version posted April 3, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 21 ABSTRACT 22 Sponges provide an array of ecological services and benefits for Caribbean coral reefs. They 23 function as habitats for a bewildering variety of species, however limited attention has been paid 24 in the systematics and distribution of sponge-associated fauna in the class Calcarea or for that 25 matter of sponges in the Caribbean.