Barbara Lainz
Position : Visiting Masters Student
Education:
Research interest: Climate Change, Ecosystem function, community ecology, demersal zooplankton, cleaner fish
Master’s Project: "Indirect effect of cleaner fish on the community of demersal plankton during bleaching events"
The overall aim of this project is to understand the different effects of cleaner fish presence and bleaching events on multiple organisms on coral reefs. I focused on demersal zooplankton, which emerges from the reef benthos - usually to feed or reproduce in the water column. Zooplankton is important on reefs, including being a food for many fishes that benefit from cleaners’ presence in many ways. This project started in 2000, on reefs where the presence of cleaners has been manipulated for 20 years. In total, zooplankton have been sampled there 24 times (as of January 2020). I processed samples from 12 recent trips (April 2016 to July 2019), a period involving two mass coral bleaching events. I measured zooplankton biomass (dry weight) and abundance. I differentiated between copepod nauplii (larvae) and other kinds of zooplankton (mollusks, cnidarians, crustaceans, annelids, etc), as the former was often highly abundant. I will examine the effects of time of day (day or night), season, and year in addition to the presence or absence of cleaner fish on the zooplankton community.
I was also interested in the possible effect of the benthic substrate. For this, I used samples collected from different substrates (hard coral, soft coral, dead coral, sand) from the same sites and measured their biomass.
By focusing on zooplankton, a very understudied community which also forms the foundation of the food-chain of many other organisms, this study will help us better understand the ecology of coral reefs.
Supervisors: Dr Alexandra Grutter
Education:
- 2018-2020: Master’s degree on Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution, specialized on Evolutionary Ecology, Sorbonne University Paris
- 2015-2018: Bachelor’s degree on Biology, Sorbonne University Paris
Research interest: Climate Change, Ecosystem function, community ecology, demersal zooplankton, cleaner fish
Master’s Project: "Indirect effect of cleaner fish on the community of demersal plankton during bleaching events"
The overall aim of this project is to understand the different effects of cleaner fish presence and bleaching events on multiple organisms on coral reefs. I focused on demersal zooplankton, which emerges from the reef benthos - usually to feed or reproduce in the water column. Zooplankton is important on reefs, including being a food for many fishes that benefit from cleaners’ presence in many ways. This project started in 2000, on reefs where the presence of cleaners has been manipulated for 20 years. In total, zooplankton have been sampled there 24 times (as of January 2020). I processed samples from 12 recent trips (April 2016 to July 2019), a period involving two mass coral bleaching events. I measured zooplankton biomass (dry weight) and abundance. I differentiated between copepod nauplii (larvae) and other kinds of zooplankton (mollusks, cnidarians, crustaceans, annelids, etc), as the former was often highly abundant. I will examine the effects of time of day (day or night), season, and year in addition to the presence or absence of cleaner fish on the zooplankton community.
I was also interested in the possible effect of the benthic substrate. For this, I used samples collected from different substrates (hard coral, soft coral, dead coral, sand) from the same sites and measured their biomass.
By focusing on zooplankton, a very understudied community which also forms the foundation of the food-chain of many other organisms, this study will help us better understand the ecology of coral reefs.
Supervisors: Dr Alexandra Grutter
