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With coral cover on Caribbean reefs at historic lows, sponges are now the dominant, habitat-forming animals on most of them. The decline in coral is due to disease, heat stress from warming waters and waves from storms. Additionally, scientists have discovered that overfishing has added to this decline by lessening the numbers of predator fish that feed on some sponge species.
Image credit: Joseph R. Pawlik, University of North Carolina Wilmington
