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E.M.J. (Ellie) Laetz, PhD

Assistant Professor in Marine Biology, Ecology and Evolution and Veni Laureate
Profile picture of E.M.J. (Ellie) Laetz, PhD
E-mail:
e.m.j.laetz rug.nl

Research interests

I am interested in the relationship between marine organisms and their environments. Climate change is disrupting marine ecosystems and some organisms are more vulnerable than others, but we don’t properly understand why. In the Ecophysiology and Evolution of Endosymbioses (E3) Lab, my students and I investigate how environmental stress affects marine animals using an integrative approach and a wide variety of different biological techniques. We focus on animals that form symbiotic relationships with algae, from sea slugs to upside-down jellyfish, sea anemones, and more, to unravel fundamental aspects of the algae-animal symbiosis, explore the tradeoffs associated with symbiosis and predict how these organisms will cope with the warmer, more acidified and deoxygenated oceans of the future. 

Publications

Crawl away from the light!: Assessing behavioral and physiological photoprotective mechanisms in tropical solar-powered sea slugs exposed to natural light intensities

Critical thermal maxima and oxygen uptake in Elysia viridis (Montagu, 1804), a sea slug that steals chloroplasts to photosynthesize

Potential energetic and oxygenic benefits to unstable photosymbiosis in the cladobranch slug, Berghia stephanieae (Nudibranchia, Aeolidiidae)

Unraveling the Phidiana paradox: Phidiana lynceus can retain algal symbionts but its nocturnal tendencies prevent benefits from photosynthesis

Shedding light on starvation in darkness in the plastid-bearing sea slug Elysia viridis (Montagu, 1804)

Integrative approaches to understanding organismal responses to aquatic deoxygenation

Kleptoplasts are continuously digested during feeding in the plastid-bearing sea slug Elysia viridis

Statocyst content in Aeolidida (Nudibranchia) is an uninformative character for phylogenetic studies

Comparing amylose production in two solar-powered sea slugs: The sister taxa Elysia timida and E. cornigera (Heterobranchia: Sacoglossa)

How does temperature affect functional kleptoplasty?: Comparing populations of the solar-powered sister-species Elysia timida Risso, 1818 and Elysia cornigera Nuttall, 1989 (Gastropoda: Sacoglossa)

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Press/media

Sea slugs’ survival secrets

Featured Scientist by Women in Ocean Science

These slugs cut off their own heads when they want a new body