The community can be extremely diverse, as shown by work done by Dr. Hill's Ph.D. student, Nicole Webster. Many of the bacteria present within the internal community are not found at all in the ambient surrounding water column. Second, the presence of this unique population makes this micro-environment an excellent place to look for new types of bacteria with potential commercial uses. Many marine organisms, bacteria included are being screened for potential new chemical compounds, particularly ones of potential pharmaceutical interest. Practically there are some difficulties analysing the sponges internal microbial communities.
Many sponges are rare and many are found in deep waters making sampling difficult.
It is also difficult to keep the micro-environment intact in a laboratory culturing situation. Another interesting group is the actinomycete group. They are cultured on an extremely large scale by pharmaceutical companies. In addition, there are interesting features at the ends of their linear chromosomes. This means that these bacteria have the potential to change characteristics very quickly and may explain why there are such variations between strains.