Dr Laurence De Clippele

Position: Post-doctoral Researcher

Contact: laurence.de.clippele@ed.ac.uk

Weblinks for Researchgate and Linkedin profiles

Dr Laurence De Clippele is a marine ecologist who studies cold-water coral reefs and has a general interest in marine biodiversity, biogeography, ecosystem functioning, trophic ecology and pollution. Currently, she works as part of the European Horizon 2020 iAtlantic project, a multidisciplinary research programme seeking to assess the health of deep-sea and open-ocean ecosystems across the full span of the Atlantic Ocean. She is also a lecturer in the Msc Marine Systems and Policies programme.

Her research focusses on:

• Ecology: studying patterns in biodiversity and behaviours of cold-water coral reef fauna based on ROV videos, imagery and acoustic recordings.
• Mapping: predictive modelling of the presence and biomass of cold-water coral reef fauna
• Ecosystem functions: quantifying the total nutrient cycling capacity of cold-water coral reefs
• Characterising: describing the geomorphology of coral mounds across the Atlantic.

Laurence enjoys combining academic research with developing and delivering public engagement activities and dissemination materials to connect and share our science with a wider audience. Her aim is to build a stronger relationship and a two-way dialogue between science and society. Examples are science-artist collaborations, Future Of Our Seas, Midlothian Science Festival, Edinburgh Science Festival, several video editing and design projects.

Prior to this, she was conducting research as part of the H2020 ATLAS project where she has also filled- in as ATLAS project manager. She was also a project assistant and team leader at the International Edinburgh Science Festival. Laurence did her PhD (Ecological and environmental controls on the fine-scale distribution of cold-water corals in the North-East Atlantic) at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh). Funded by the Leonardo Da Vinci Scholarship she also worked for 6 months at the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen (Norway) on the fauna associated with cold-water gorgonians and seapens. Her masters is in Marine and Lacustrine Sciences and Management with a major in Ecology and her bachelors is in Biology, during which she worked at the Tjärnö  Marine biological laboratory (recovery of cold-water coral reefs) (Sweden) and participated in a course on intertidal biodiversity at the Roscoff marine station (France).

Publications

De Clippele LH, Michelotti M, et al. (2021) The Future of Our Seas: Marine Scientists and Creative Professionals Collaborate for Science Communication. Research for All

De Clippele LH, Rovelli L, Ramiro- Sanchez, Kazanidis G, Vad J, Turner S, Glud RN, Roberts JM (2020) Mapping cold-water coral biomass: an approach to derive ecosystem functions. Coral reefs 40: 215-231

Murray F, De Clippele LH,  Hiley A, Wicks L,  Roberts JM,  Hennige S (2019) Multiple feeding strategies observed in the cold-water coral Lophelia pertusa. J. Mar. Biol. Assoc 99: 1281-1282

De Clippele LH, Huvenne VI, Molodtsova T, Roberts KM (2019) The diversity and role of non-scleractinian corals on scleractinian cold-water coral mounds. Frontiers in Marine Science 6: 184

De Clippele LH, Huvenne VAI, Orejas C, Lundälv T, Fox A, Hennige S, Roberts JM (2018) The effects of the local hydrodynamics on the spatial extent and morphology of cold-water coral habitats at the Tisler reef, Coral reefs 1: 253-266

De Clippele LH, Gafeira J, Robert K, Hennige S, Lavaleye MS, Duineveld GCA, Huvenne VAI and Roberts JM (2017) Using novel acoustic and visual mapping tools to predict the small-scale spatial distribution of live biogenic reef framework in cold-water coral habitats. Coral reefs 1: 255-268

Henry L-A, Stehmann M, De Clippele LH, Roberts JM (2016) Seamount egg-laying grounds of the deep-water skate Bathyraja richardsoni: Deep-water Bathyraja richardsoni egg-laying grounds. Journal of Fish Biology 89(2)

Vansteenbrugge L, Hostens K, Vanhove B, De Backer A, De Clippele L, De Troch M (2016) Erratum to trophic ecology of Mnemiopsis in the southern North Sea a biomarker application. Marine Biology 163:184

De Clippele LH, Buhl-Mortensen P and Buhl-Mortensen L (2015) Fauna associated with gorgonians and sea pens. Continental Shelf Research 105: 67-78

Hummel et al. (2015) A comparison of the degree of implementation of marine biodiversity indicators by European countries about the marine strategy framework directive (MFSD). Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK 95(8): 1519-1531

De Clippele LH (2014) Mapping the treasures of the deep sea. The Marine Biologist 2: 20-21

De Clippele LH (2012) Master thesis in the Marine biology department at the University of Ghent and ILVO (Belgium): Assessing the trophic position of the invasive ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi in the Southern North Sea, using biochemical tracer techniques (stable isotopes and fatty acids).

De Clippele LH (2010) Bachelor thesis in the Protistology and Aquatic Ecology department at the University of Ghent: The potential application of herbivore amoeba for the biological control of harmful algae (cyanobacteria – Microcystis)