Pérez and coll., pers. obs.). Nevertheless, the sponge inventories of both islands already share a number of traits. For instance, a total of 18 orders of Demospongiae were recorded in Martinique against 17 in Guadeloupe. In this sponge class, the two most representative orders are the Haplosclerida, with 25 species in Guadeloupe and 41 in Martinique, and Poecilosclerida, with18 and 24 species, respectively. This trait reflects the overall predominance of these two taxa worldwide, with 2314 valid Poecilosclerida and 1114 valid Haplosclerida registered in the World Porifera Database. In both islands, Verongiida, Agelasida and Clionaida were also represented by about 10 species each, which is a usual trait of tropical sponge communities. Regarding the other French islands, Saint Martin and Saint Barthélémy, our knowledge is still too poorand phylogeography at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  ŁUKOWIAK Magdalena         PL        SC, PDoc, S+        Assistant Professor mainly working on spicular analysis and reconstructing fossil sponge association at the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Science, Poland
  PASCAL Pierre-Yves         FR        SC, AP, S-          Assistant Professor at University of Antilles, teaching sponges and conducting research projects on sponge ecology, Guadeloupe, France
  RUIZ Cesar             