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NOAA Technical Report NMFS 140 



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GRAMS 

 PER SQUARE METER 



PORIFERA 



Figure 27 

 Geographic distribution of Porifera: A — number of specimens per square meter of bot- 

 tom; B — biomass in grams per square meter of bottom. 



fauna was moderately high (3-5%) along the outer 

 continental shelf and upper continental slope (Table 

 14). On the inner shelf and in very deep water, sponges 

 made up a small portion of the total biomass. 



Sponges were present in 3 to 12% of the collections 

 within each depth class (Table 15). The highest fre- 

 quency of occurrence was on the continental slope 



(200 to 2,000 in). These sponges were small, and were 

 frequently attached to polychaete tubes, shell fragments, 

 corals, and other biogenic substrates. 



Relation to Sediments 



Porifera were generally more numerous and consti- 

 tuted a substantially larger biomass in coarse substrates 



