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Abstract

Oxygen microprofiles were measured over the boundary layer and into the tissue of 10-day-old cultivated tissue fragments (explants of 2–4 cm3) from the choanosome of the cold-water sponge Geodia barretti with oxygen-sensitive Clark-type microelectrodes. At this time of cultivation, the surface tissue and the aquiferous system of the explants is regenerating, which makes oxygen and nutrient supply by pumping activity impossible. Oxygen profiles showed a parabolic shape, indicating oxygen flux over a diffusive boundary layer and into the tissue. Oxygen was always depleted only 1 mm below the sponge surface, leaving the major part of the explants anoxic. Diffusive oxygen flux into the explant was calculated from three oxygen profiles using Fick's first law of diffusion and revealed 9 μmol O2 cm−3 day−1, which is in the lower range of in situ oxygen consumption of whole sponges. The ability of G. barretti to handle continuous tissue anoxia enables choanosomal explants to survive the critical first weeks of cultivation without a functional aquiferous system, when oxygen is supplied to the sponge explant by molecular diffusion over its surface.