Sebastian Hennige collected field data at the OpWall Indonesian marine research site for his thesis on The Role of Photoacclimation on Distribution of Hermatypic Coral Species. New techniques in fluorescence were being used to assess zooxanthellae photophysiology in a variety of coral species. Experiments used non-invasive and invasive techniques to provide a detailed characterisation of the growth and productivity of zooxanthellae in different coral species. All measurements were repeated upon in hospite zooxanthellae and isolated zooxanthellae in culture suspensions to understand the physical contribution of the host upon zooxanthellae photoacclimation. The genetic strain (clade) of all isolated zooxanthellae was also determined. In situ work in Indonesia complemented the laboratory data. Sebastian was supervised by Dr Dave Smith.
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