Jillian Petersen

In her project SeaSym, Jillian Petersen and her team will investigate the biodiversity and ecological functions of a very widespread type of microbial symbiont in coastal marine ecosystems, including seagrass meadows and salt marshes, which are also essential to ocean health. This symbiont group is called Sedimenticolaceae. Petersen and her team will test the theory that Sedimenticolaceae symbionts provide their hosts with a natural ‘fertilizer’ through their nitrogen-fixing activity, and that they cleanse the environment of toxic sulfides, promoting plant health. They will test how the function of such symbioses might adapt to future oceans that are becoming warmer.