Gloria Misson, PhD student at the University of Trieste (Italy)

Gloria Mission She has been at CEAB-CSIC working with GAME members for the past 3 months. She has been learning advanced techniques for seagrass sediment core analysis and developing statistical techniques to analyse time series data from the Balearic Islands.

Her PhD project proposes experimental models to assess seagrass meadows and seagrass wrack decomposition dynamics in both controlled conditions and experimental fields in North-East Italy, with a focus on CO₂ and CH₄ emissions, as a function of temperature, salinity, water supply and physical properties.

The experiment models include the following activities:
– Understand the role of seagrass and sediment features in carbon sequestration; – Describe the seagrass deposition dynamics and characterise the plant biomass; – Measure the CO₂ efflux from litter decomposition using Uniud-SR, an automatic open-top chamber system (laboratory experiment) and litter bags (field experiment); – Assess the CH₄ efflux from the litter materials decomposing under anaerobic conditions in a laboratory-scale setup.

Gloria, we hope you had a pleasant time here. From our side, it was a pleasure for all of us to have you here. Good luck!