DOI: 10.5061/dryad.qfttdz0wp
title: How to train your sponge: Imprinting material memories in marine sponge tissue

description: Sponges, though relatively simple in structure and function, are living
 animals and thus operate out of thermodynamic equilibrium. Often, they
 appear in aquatic environments with a moving current. It is natural to
 assume that they can adapt, actively or passively, to such an external
 drive. Here, we hypothesize that sponge tissue encodes material memories
 from cyclic driving that are similar to what they experience from moving
 current in vivo. We simulate externally driven current by way of
 oscillatory shear strain applied by a rheometer and show that sponge
 tissue remembers aspects of its previous loading history. In particular,
 we uncover that sponges, both living and decellularized dead skeletons,
 can form memories of two different kinds: memory of the largest strain, as
 well as memories of the training amplitude. We find that sponges with
 siliceous spicules embedded in their tissue have a higher capacity for
 both kinds of memory when compared to a species with no spicules, but
 surprisingly, a synthetic cleaning sponge also outperformed the species
 without spicules. We also shed light on so-called orthogonal memory
 effects. Our results broaden the class of disordered systems that form
 memories to include spongy materials.
description: # How to train your sponge: Imprinting material memories in marine sponge
 tissue This readme file was generated on 2025-12-30 and edited on
 2026-02-15 by E.A.K. ### GENERAL INFORMATION Title of Dataset: Data from
 "How to train your sponge: imprinting material memories in marine
 sponge tissue" Date of data collection: Jul--Oct 2025 Geographic
 location of data collection: Syracuse, NY Information about funding
 sources that supported the collection of the data: None ### DATA &
 FILE OVERVIEW General Description: This dataset has five main folders
 inside 'data.zip', one for each of the five materials studied:
 'Aplysina fulva', 'Cliona celata', 'Halichondria
 bowerbanki', 'liquid PDMS', and 'synthetic
 sponge'. Within each of these folders are subfolders for each
 different rheological protocol carried out: 'memprotocol1' for
 the Mullins effect and 'memprotocol2' for constant amplitude
 annealing, as well as a folder labeled 'pics' or 'pix'
 with pictures of the materials. Each 'memprotocolx' folder also
 has a subfolder 'plots' with plots created by basic Python code.
 Each raw .csv file is labeled with the date acquired, the type of sample,
 which memory protocol it was, the frequency of oscillatory shear, and
 which number of sample it was. For 'memprotocol1' data, the
 files are also labeled with 'd' for whether it was a downwards
 amplitude sweep or 'u' for whether it was an upwards amplitude
 sweep. Each raw .csv file contains columns for the gap height (mm), action
 time (s), sequence time (s), angular displacement (rad), torque (N*m),
 normal force (N), angular frequency (rad/s), shear strain (%), shear
 stress (Pa), shear modulus (elastic component) (Pa), and shear modulus
 (viscous component) (Pa). There are also .csv files labeled by
 'summary' at the end of the filename for summarized data for a
 given sample. Summarized data may also be found in the rows at the ends of
 the raw files. For Aplysina fulva and Halichondria bowerbanki, there are
 more samples listed than what was used in the paper. This was due to
 slippage in the rheometer plates or noise in the data. ### METHODOLOGICAL
 INFORMATION Methods for processing the data: numerical analysis in Python
 **DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR: MEMPROTOCOL1 SUMMARIES** Number of
 variables: 10 (multiplied by the number of upwards and downwards strain
 sweeps completed, which was 4: up to 5%, up to 8%, up to 11%, and up to
 14%) Number of cases/rows: variable Variable List: shear strain in percent
 (up sweep), shear stress in Pa (up sweep), storage modulus in Pa (up
 sweep), loss modulus in Pa (up sweep), normal stress in kPa (up sweep),
 then repeated for the downwards amplitude sweeps **DATA-SPECIFIC
 INFORMATION FOR: MEMPROTOCOL2 SUMMARIES** Number of variables: 7
 (multiplied by the number of read periods, which was 2) Number of
 cases/rows: 12 Variable List: read cycle 1 strain in percent, read cycle 1
 stress in Pa, read cycle 1 storage modulus in Pa, read cycle 1 loss
 modulus in Pa, read cycle 1 normal stress in kPa, read cycle 1 shear
 differential modulus in Pa, read cycle 1 normal differential modulus in
 Pa, then repeated for the second reading period