Alicia Veuillot, PhD student, Deep-Sea laboratory (LEP, Brittany)

Alicia VEUILLOT is a PhD Student on benthic ecology at the Deep-Sea laboratory (LEP, Brittany) supervised by Jozée Sarrazin, Marie-Anne Cambon and Florence Pradillon. After a bachelor’s degree in ecology (Haute-Savoie), and a master’s degree in functioning and management of marine ecosystems (Boulogne-sur-mer) with several short oceanographic missions in the coastal environment and a 6-month internship in the LEP, Alicia is continuing to do research. Her thesis is COLONIZE: Colonisation processes at the periphery of hydrothermal vents: zones that are potentially targeted for their mineral resources. She should take part in the BICOSE 3 campaign in winter 2023. She is working on two vent fields forming part of the French exploration license area: TAG and Snake Pit (Mid-Atlantic Ridge) where artificial substrates (slate, wood, bone and synthetic sponge) were deployed from 2014 to 2018. Her main objective is to study colonization of microorganisms, meiofaunal and macrofaunal compartments, with the aim of assessing the colonizing potential of artificial substrates and thus promote the ecosystemic restoration in the event of mining. Besides this, Alicia is involved in outreach projects and scientific communication such as “Les Cordées de la Réussite”, “Immersion Sciences” and “Festival Grand Océan”.