Last month, iBB and DBE researcher Tina Keller-Costa and PhD student Matilde Marques embarked on a mission to the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia to investigate the response of tropical octocorals and their microbiomes to climate change. Octocorals are the most widespread group of coral but how they respond to climate change stresses such as seawater temperature rise, and microbial pathogens is not understood. This project is conducted in collaboration with the Red Sea Research Centre at King Abdullah University for Science and Technology and the Marine Microbiomes lab of Raquel Peixoto, a specialist in coral probiotics research. Tina was also invited to present an institute seminar on her research on the diversity, function, and biotechnology of the octocoral microbiome. Matilde, supported by a MIT Portugal PhD grant and jointly supervised by Rodrigo Costa, Raquel Peixoto and Tina, continues her stay at KAUST to run aquarium experiments, which hopefully will deliver much needed knowledge on how octocorals can be better protected.

#ForCoral #savetheocean #collaboration #exchange #KAUST #Técnico #iBB #DBE