Speaker: Dr. Ulrich Niermann
Date: 6 July 2012
Time: 3.00 p.m.
Venue: Meeting room 107,
School of Biological Sciences
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract:
The sea walnut (Mnemiopsis leidyi), a comb jellyfish, was transported accidently in ballast water of petrol ships from its native habitat America to Europe. It invaded the Black Sea during the late 1980’s. It spread over the Caspian and Mediterranean Sea in subsequent years and conquered the northern European Seas during 2006. Dr. Niermann studied behavior of this comb jelly in one of its native subtropical habitats in the waters off Belize a little state south of Mexico. This state owns not only extended Mangrove areas but as well the second largest barrier reef of the world (after the Great Barrier Reef of Australia). Dr. Niermann will introduce these unique coral - and surprisingly colorful Mangrove ecosystems and will inform about their basic structure, their meaning for the human and of changes during the last decades due to climatic impacts and extensive anthropogenic exploitation.
