Hawaii Invasive Species Council

Sponges play an important role in our marine ecosystems, but no one knows how many invasive sponges are in Hawaii’s waters. Nor do we know how many native species there are. Jan Vicente, a post-doctoral researcher at the Hawaii Institute for Marine Biology, shares his work on demystifying Hawaii’s sponge communities in his brown bag presentation, “Establishing a genetic and morphological database for detection of future sponge introductions in Hawaii.” Jan’s work is funded, in part, by the Hawaii Invasive Species Council.

This presentation is part of the HISC Brown Bag series, a set of informal talks by invasive species experts and stakeholders in Hawaii. For more brown bag presentations, visit https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/category/brownbag