Our PhD-student Noémie Buratto has returned from a successful field trip in Florida! She was there from July 16 till August 6, 2025 to study the upside-down jellyfish (Cassiopea sp.). Specifically, she located and collected about 30 jellyfish specimens and then performed 72-hour (!) behavioural tests under controlled conditions to better understand how these animals behave, and how variation in their behaviour may (or may not) be linked to their morphology. She also preserved and shipped 15 specimens back to Belgium to analyse their microplastic content. Fantastic work, Noémie!
She was there together with colleagues from our Research Unit in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, Prof. Frédéric Silvestre, Dr. Noëmie Guirandy, and Justine Bélik, who were there doing really cool stuff with Mangrove killifish (Kryptolebias marmoratus). Read about it in Frédéric’s blog here!
(And many thanks to Frédéric Silvestre for these pictures!)