Talk Title: Researching Fluorescence In Coral-dwelling Gall Crabs (Cryptochiridae) - Challenges And Surprises

Speaker1: Susanne Bahr, PhD Student in Benzoni HaBB Lab

Zoom ID: https://kaust.zoom.us/j/97718107004

Speaker Information: I grew up in the middle of Germany, far away from the sea, so after my bachelor's degree in Biology working on olfactory receptors in crickets, I moved to Groningen in the Netherlands to start my Master's in Marine Science. Ironically and unplanned, I continued working on arthropods, mainly symbiotic crabs that live in association in stony corals, as I have always been fascinated by the concept of symbiosis. I researched the defense response of Trapezia, better known as coral guardian crabs, against the Crown of Thorns Starfish in Kenya, but I mostly focused on several different topics revolving around coral-dwelling gall crabs. My samples at the time came from KAUST because my former supervisor had been guest here before, so when I graduated from my Masters looking for a way to start studying fluorescence in crustaceans, I reached out to Francesca, and I was very lucky that I found somebody who was interested in exploring a relatively understudied phenomenon and how it relates to biodiversity in the Red Sea.