What are marine forests? Marine forests are biodiverse-rich ecosystems engineered by key structural taxa of macroalgae, seagrass and corals. Depending on the keystone taxa, we can separate them in three main ecosystems: seaweed banks, seagrass meadows and coral reefs. Seagrass meadows Seagrasses are marine flowering plants rooted to the seafloor. They can grow over large areas, creating...
Hello! I am Sofie, a PhD student at the University of Ghent, currently working on unravelling the role Laminaria ochroleuca’s microbiome plays in its growth and development. Laminaria ochroleuca, also known as the golden kelp, is a temperate brown seaweed species, mainly found in the coastal waters of Europe ranging from the UK to Morocco (1,2). It plays an important role in rocky shore...
It’s mid-October in Sardinia, and the once packed beaches in the Summer, are bare and wild. It’s windy and not necessarily warm, but I can’t resist jumping in the water for a little snorkelling session in the crystalline turquoise waters Sardinia is known for. Me walking along the Li Itriceddi beach in Sardinia. Seagrass patches are visible amongst the rocks. The moment I put my head underwater...
Humanity is at a crossroad, and if the correct path is chosen, a prosperous and safe future is still possible. For that to happen, society needs to make decisions based on what evidence suggests are the most efficient solutions for mitigating the climate crisis we are facing.Having access to a wide range of worldwide scientific literature, which can support qualified debates on integrating local...
When people think of coral reefs, they usually imagine warm, shallow tropical waters; not cold, dark deep ocean waters. But there are coral reefs living in the dark at the bottom of the ocean as well. They are hard to access and not as vibrant as their warm-water relatives, still they harbor almost as many species and serve as nursery grounds for many commercially important fish [1]. These...
Peter Kuperus and Gerard Muyzer from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) visited the Center of Marine Sciences (CCMAR) to give a hands-on workshop on microbiome analysis of marine organisms. The 16S rRNA genes of the microbiomes of different organisms and environments (i.e., seagrasses, green and brown algae, seawater and sediments) were PCR-amplified with different primer sets and subsequently...