On Our Changing World, we head to Antarctica to join an international team of researchers studying the giant glass sponges that live on the seafloor.  

While the sea ice might be a flat white expanse, with very little life to be seen, the ocean beneath is full of colour and critters, and the sponges are key to this thriving ecosystem.  

Project lead Dr Jürgen Laudien from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany wants to understand what the sponges eat, how fast they grow, and how they exchange nutrients with the water around them.  

We join the team in their dive tent on the ice near Scott Base, where a hole cut through the ice allows them access to the ocean beneath.