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...
With the ability of building complex 3D habitats, corals as sessile animals harbor high levels of biodiversity, similar to plants on land. While iconic ecosystems like tropical coral reefs and seagrass meadows occur in light-flooded zones of the ocean, deep coral assemblages populate oceanic regions where light is scarce or even absent, and therefore remain entirely out of sight. Together with...