The gap in our understanding of the deep-sea biodiversity
The second speaker at ASftS#7 was Ann Vanreusel. She is head of the Marine Biology research group at Ghent University. Her expertise lies in marine ecology and biodiversity with a special focus on the meiobenthos. Meiofauna - for those not involved in marine biology- loosely defines a group of organisms by their size, larger than microfauna but smaller than macrofauna.
We invited Ann Vanreusel because of her involvement in research projects focusing on marine environments such as deep-sea and hydrothermal springs. In 2014 she was contacted by DEME, one of the mining companies in order to do the environmental baseline for their concession in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone CCZ in the Pacific.
