> By Jean-Christophe AUGUET, Researcher CNRS, MARBEC UMR
Marine environments contain billions and billions of micro-organisms that play a crucial role in the functioning of ecosystems. Facilitated by recent advances in molecular biology that have made it possible to inventory and describe micro-organisms on a large scale, research over the last 30 years has demonstrated the exceptional diversity of these micro-organisms that make up marine plankton, i.e. those living in the water column. Micro-organisms associated with marine macro-organisms, on the other hand, have been of more recent interest. This is the case, for example, of those associated with fish or corals. These microbial communities, known as 'microbiota' because they live in interaction with an animal host, are thought to play important roles in the health of both their hosts and the environment. My research therefore involves studying the dynamics and species that make up these microbiota and their roles, both for their hosts and for the environment.
Key words: microbiota, ocean, coral reefs, environmental DNA.
