Foundation species (FS) regulate ecological processes within communities often facilitating biodiversity and habitat complexity. Typically FS are dominant structure-forming taxa; but less dominant taxa having disproportionate ecological impacts to the community can also be FS. Mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) are deep coral reef (∼30–150 m) communities, often dominated by emergent sponges in the Caribbean Basin. Despite the...

Sponges are a crucial component of Caribbean coral reef ecosystem structure and function. In the Caribbean, many sponges show a predictable increase in percent cover or abundance as depth increases from shallow ( Xestospongia muta , Agelas tubulata , and Plakortis angulospiculatus , and use stable isotope analyses to determine whether shifts in trophic resource utilization along a shallow to mesophotic gradient occurred. Ecolo...