Throughout my NSF funded postdoctoral fellowship I have been studying the biodiversity of marine sponges in Kaneohe Bay. Over 150 species have been collected, vouchered and are being provided with COI and 28S rRNA sequence data. The majority of these species are new records for Kaneohe Bay and are currently being described. The cryptic diversity of sponges is being monitored on Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS), where over 100 species have settled over a two year period. Temporal patterns of cryptic species diversity are also being monitored every two months on ARMS units installed on fringing reef habitats around the bay and on experimental tanks exposed to flow-through seawater manipulated for pCO2 and temperature values simulating different climate change scenarios for the end of the century. Results from this research will help resolve the species composition of sponges living in Kaneohe Bay and reveal temporal patterns influencing their distribution
