Caroline Hoyoux graduated in zoology from the University of Liège in 2005. She was awarded an FRS-FNRS grant and began a doctoral thesis within the framework of the Ultrastructural Morphology Unit, which is part of the University of Liège’s Functional and Evolutionary Laboratory (Faculty of Science). This thesis concerns the development of life within a marine environment on which few studies have been carried out: sunken wood, i.e. trees that sink to the seabed, and whose organic matter constitutes a real ecosystem. The work she is currently carrying out is focused on the group of crustaceans that colonise these organic substrates on the seabed, on their particular diet and the role(s) they play within the ecosystem, as well as the role of the bacteria present in the digestive system of some of them. Caroline Hoyoux took part in an oceanographic mission in the archipelago of the Solomon Islands, north east of Australia, organised by the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) in Paris and the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD).

Selection of publications

Hoyoux C., Zbinden M., Samadi S., Gaill F. & Compère Ph. (2009) “Wood-based diet and gut microflora of a galatheid crab associated with Pacific deep-sea wood falls” Marine Biology 156: 2421-2439

Becker P. T., Samadi S., Zbinden M., Hoyoux C., Compère P. & De Ridder C. (2009) “First insights into the gut microflora associated with an echinoid from wood falls environments” Cahiers de Biologie Marine, in press.