Dr Judith van Bleijswijk Tierens Verhagen

All marine organisms, from viruses to whales, have my interest. Microorganisms have a huge effect on the physical and chemical characteristics of oceans and seas. Our goal is to learn more about their roles, about implications for climate and robust ecosystems, and about how these roles may change under human induced perturbations. DNA is a useful target to study ecology of marine organisms, and our labs are fully equipped for this goal. We study diverse marine communities via DNA that organisms release into the environment (eDNA); we also study food webs by looking for prey DNA in feces and guts. This allows to find essential dependencies and interactions among different organisms whatever their size is.