The neurobiology of marine zooplankton

The world’s oceans are teeming with microscopic animal life, with myriads of tiny critters, collectively called zooplankton, swimming and swirling in the water. These organisms sense and react to their environment, are able to sense where the light is coming from, how cold the water is, or how deep they are. They achieve this with nervous systems of surprising simplicity. The research group is trying to understand, using the marine annelid Platynereis as a model, how these nervous systems are wired up and function.