Competition law is often perceived as a stable discipline. In fact, one is often reminded that competition law must be based on economic considerations and reject external social, or political objectives. This paper argues that this appealing view – which embodies a sense of purity – is merely an illusion. It ignores the 'sponge-like' characteristics of the law – its susceptibility to national peculiarities originating in its design and evident in its application and its exposure to intellectual and regulatory capture. While the idea of a stable, predictable and economically-based antitrust discipline is in all of our interests, these traits are not inherent to the law. They are forced onto the sponge in an attempt to 'discipline' its natural tendencies, and propagated as reality, to support its legitimacy.
This fact sheet provides information on the Objectives and activities of Work Package 6 of the SponGES project: Threats and impacts to sponge grounds. Considering diverse anthropogenic stressors acting on the deep sea and the vulnerability of deep-sea sponges to human disturbance, it is urgent to understand the full scale of human impacts on these ecosystems, and how they interact with each other. Such information is essential to respond to international regulations such as the UNGA Resolution 61/105 for the protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems from destructive fishing practices and for identifying indicators of Good Environmental Status for seafloor integrity of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
This SponGES project policy briefs presents an overview of the main threats that deep-sea sponge grounds face, including those due to fishing activity, and the effects of sediment and climate change on sponge species.
The fact sheet describes the objectives and activities of Workpackage 2: Biodiversity of the SponGES project. The main aim of this Work Package is to provide a complete assessment of the biodiversity contained within sponge grounds ecosystems of the North Atlantic.
This SponGES policy brief provides a list of ecosystem features of deep-sea sponges covering five different domains: distribution, biodiversity, genetic diversity, nutrient and element fluxes, and response to threats and impacts. It also presents the results of a questionnaire that was administered to sponge experts within the SponGES project, to gain further knowledge and understanding on the overall ecological value of deep-sea sponges and possible consequences of their damage/destruction.
The latest expansion of the EU towards the East has again modified its borders, showing once again the intangibility and flexibility of the latter. The very definition of border acquires different meanings depending on which theme is being discussed: an impenetrable barrier against migratory flows and the introduction of goods, transforming itself into a strainer for the exporting of national products. The new Internal Affairs Commissioner for the EU, Rocco Buttiglione, affirms on the one hand that migratory flows cannot be blocked manu militari, although he also believes that Europe decides who can enter and who cannot. Even within Europe, and despite the Schengen Agreements, borders are taking shape in concrete situations, reminding us that their disappearance is not definitive. We should differentiate between natural borders and those erected by man; in reference to the latter we will focus on walls, such as the one no longer standing in Berlin or that illegally erected by Israel in the Occupied Territories, scoffing at the international bodies dedicated to the defense of human rights and freedoms. In reference to natural borders, in direct opposition to those made by man, and due to the dramatic events that are taking place, we will concentrate on the oceans, true black holes in which the dreams of immigrants come to a tragic end. The absence of man-made elements can be more powerful than the presence of the very same barriers. The interesting thing about the Berlin Wall, having certain similarities to the Great Wall of China, is its slow (but deliberate)transformation from Cold War symbol to souvenir and finally its disappearance altogether in favour of urbanistic exploitation. The best analysis of this condition, as R. Koolhaas states (encloses free space, leaving outside the enclosed city), resides in its mutable situation, sometimes improvised evolution, and others detailed planning. It seems unfathomable that after the disappearance of one wall someone could construct another, especially under ...
This SponGES project policy brief provides an overview on the large economic benefits potentially conveyed by deep-sea sponges based on current research findings.
This SponGES project policy brief shows how deep-sea sponges represent a source of chemicals with potential pharmaceutical and industrial applications, and it discusses the knowledge gaps and challenges in unlocking their biotechnological potential.
This fact sheet highlights the objectives and activities of Workpackage 5 of the SponGES project: Biotechnological potential. The work package studies deep-sea sponges of the North Atlantic to discover new sponge-derived products and processes with applications in human health, biomaterials, and other industrial applications.
An Open Access paper submitted under the category "Uncovered". ; We acknowledge the financial support from European Union H2020 programme (SponGES – 679849, CHEM2NATURE – 692333 and FORECAST – 668983) and FP7 programme (ERC Advanced Grant COMPLEXITE, ERC- 2012-ADG-20120216-321266).
ABSTRACT. Sponges are commonly known as general nutrient providers for the marine ecosystem, recycling organic matter into various forms of bioavailable nutrients such as ammonium and nitrate. In this study we challenge this view. We show that nutrient removal through microbial denitrification is a common feature in six cold-water sponge species from boreal and Arctic sponge grounds. Denitrification rates were quantified by incubating sponge tissue sections with 15NO−3 - amended oxygen-saturated seawater, mimicking conditions in pumping sponges, and de-oxygenated seawater, mimicking non-pumping sponges. It was not possible to detect any rates of anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) using incubations with 15NH+4. Denitrification rates of the different sponge species ranged from below detection to 97 nmol N cm−3 sponge d−1 under oxic conditions, and from 24 to 279 nmol N cm−3 sponge d−1 under anoxic conditions. A positive relationship between the highest potential rates of denitrification (in the absence of oxygen) and the species-specific abundances of nirS and nirK genes encoding nitrite reductase, a key enzyme for denitrification, suggests that the denitrifying community in these sponge species is active and prepared for denitrification. The lack of a lag phase in the linear accumulation of the 15N-labelled N2 gas in any of our tissue incubations is another indicator for an active community of denitrifiers in the investigated sponge species. Low rates for coupled nitrification–denitrification indicate that also under oxic conditions, the nitrate used to fuel denitrification rates was derived rather from the ambient seawater than from sponge nitrification. The lack of nifH genes encoding nitrogenase, the key enzyme for nitrogen fixation, shows that the nitrogen cycle is not closed in the sponge grounds. The denitrified nitrogen, no matter its origin, is then no longer available as a nutrient for the marine ecosystem. These results suggest a high potential denitrification capacity of deep-sea sponge grounds ...
