Surprisingly, Porifera are among the less known marine organisms of the Peruvian coast. Until recently, they had not been studied, mainly due to the lack of national taxonomists. The Peruvian National Action Plan for Marine Biodiversity Assessment aims to inventory the diversity of poorly known taxonomic groups, and as such, Porifera is a priority group. This is why the ESPER Project was launched by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in collaboration with the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH). After three expeditions (2007, 2008, 2009) along the entire coast of Peru, 13 students received a field training, 4 of them are engaged in a master thesis. Nearly 800 samples were collected in 105 localities. So far, more than 100 marine species and 3 freshwater species have been inventoried. Samples are still being examined and will be described in an AbcTaxa volume entitled “Sponges of Peru – Esponjas del Peru”.

The aims of the requested stay at RBINS are:

1. to make progress in the identification of the samples collected during the 2007-2008-2009 expeditions,
2. to learn and practice techniques for the description of new species, which will also involve access to reference collections and literature currently unavailable in Peru, and
3. to advance in the preparation of the AbcTaxa volume “Sponges of Peru – Esponjas del Peru”.