Studying the physiology and behaviour of marine fouling organisms

Welcome to our laboratory!  We are interested in biology at the surface-water interface.  The usual perception of ‘marine biology’ is of ‘blue oceans’ rather than surfaces, but if you accept the commonly held view that 99% of bacteria live in biofilm, surfaces come sharply into focus. Our focus, surface colonisation and biofouling, may be summarised in the form of two fundamental questions:

How do organisms find a suitable place to settle?

How do organisms remain attached to surfaces when challenged by hydrodynamic forces?

These are particularly exciting and challenging questions. Seeking the answers to them requires research at the interface of multiple disciplines through collaborations with polymer chemists, surface scientists, hydrodynamacists, analytical chemists and molecular biologists (see our publications).   The answers to these questions are expected to be of value in the applied fields of marine biofouling control and aquaculture.

Much of what we do involves model biofouling organisms that are relatively easy to culture and/or maintain in the laboratory.  At the moment we work primarily with barnacles and the blue mussel and utilise a variety of tools and instrumentation to, for example, isolate and characterise chemical cues and measures of adhesive forces.

Details of existing projects can be found on the right.  The projects are a mix of basic biofouling research and research targeted at the more immediate needs of end users:

1. •Characterisation of chemical cues to barnacle  cyprid larva settlement
   

2. •Perception of cues by cyprids and physiological control of barnacle cyprid responses
   

3. •Marine genomics of the cyprid larva to juvenile baarnacle transition
   

4. •Behaviour of barnacle cyprid larvae and mussels in response to surface architecture
   

5. •Bioadhesion and characterisation/properties of barnacle and mussel adhesives
   

6. •Engineering of materials to interfere with the normal adhesion of biofouling organisms
   

7. •Natural products as a source of biocides for anti-biofouling strategies
   

8. •Evaluation of biocides for prevention of biofouling
   

Enjoy the web site!

Prof. Tony Clare

N.B.  Visitors should feel free to reproduce any images found on this web-site, or alternatively request high resolution originals from Nick Aldred.  We do ask, however, that you acknowledge our laboratory in full whenever content is presented out of the context of this web site.  Thank you.

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Contact us!!

C Cuthbert