Abstract: Marine calcifiers such as corals and foraminifera interact with their environment via a micro-layer, surrounding their tissue surfaces and individual cell bodies. By the application of microsensing technology, we show how the extracellular microenvironment (< 1cm) around corals and foraminifera is largely governed by their metabolism and how physical changes in the extracellular – such as covering coral tissue or applying low/stagnant flow conditions – can result in transport limitation, stressing corals and resulting in tissue death and necrosis. Perspectives on future research projects will be given, further investigating these concepts in coral/disease, coral/sediment and coral/lesion interactions.

Biography: Martin Glas got his PhD last year from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany where he is currently a postdoctoral fellow. His dissertation was entitled ‘The importance of microgradients for marine calcifiers’ during which his research combined microsensor, (fluorescence-) microscopy, hyper-spectral imaging, light absorption/reflectance, mass spectrometry and chemical analyses in marine environments both in the field and laboratory. During that time he had a joint project with researchers at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. His current studies in the Microsensor Group at the Max Planck focus on microenvironmental controls in calcifier–substrate interactions.