First insight of genetic diversity, phylogeographic relationships, and population structure of marine sponge from the eastern and western Mediterranean coasts of Tunisia.

Despite the strategic localization of Tunisia in the Mediterranean Sea, no phylogeographic study on sponges has been investigated along its shores. The demosponge , descript only morphologically along Tunisian coasts, was chosen to estimate the influence of natural oceanographic and biogeographic barriers on its genetic differentiation and its Phylogeography. The cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene was amplified and analyzed for 70 Mediterranean , collected from eight localities in Tunisia.