Dr. Carl Van Colen has a broad interest in the functioning of the seafloor and its inhabitants, their interactions within the community and with the environment. He uses experimental approaches ranging from large-scale field experiments to microcosm experiments to unravel the underpinning mechanisms of community (in) stability and its consequences for ecosystem processes, functioning and service delivery, e.g. biogeochemical cycling. In addition, he studies the influence of current and predicted future environmental changes (ocean warming, acidification, hypoxia, microplastic exposure, salinity and sedimentological change) on the performance of key soft-sediment benthic species during different life stages and at different levels of biological organization. He is a lecturer at BSc and MSc level in Marine Ecology, Ecosystem services and management, Biogeochemical cycling, and Community and ecosystem ecology at UGent. In addition, He is involved in practical classes on Biodiversity and Ecosystem functioning, Aquatic ecology, Aquatic foodwebs and Spatial ecology. I supervises several BSc and MSc theses per academic year and several PhD projects in the field of marine ecology sponsored by national and European funding agencies.

Thesaurus terms: Benthic-pelagic coupling; Benthos behavioral responses; Biogeochemical cycling; Climate change; Climate change ecology; Ecosystem biodiversity; Ecosystem functioning; ecosystem stability and resilience; Environmental changes; Environmental monitoring; estuarine systems; Experimental marine biology and ecology; Multiple stressors; Ocean acidification