Dr. Vincent M.P. Bouchet
I am a marine ecologist with a broad interest in benthic diversity (macrofauna and meiofauna), ecosystem functioning and reconstructing recent past environments ; with a special focus on benthic foraminifera, one of the most abundant component of the meiofauna. ​
At the Laboratoire d’Océanologie et de Géosciences, my research focuses on advancing our knowledge of benthic foraminifera ecology in estuarine, transitional and intertidal environments, and on creating a better understanding of the role of foraminifera in the benthic ecosystem functioning. Benthic foraminifera are an important — though still relatively poorly studied and understood — group of the marine meiobenthos. Despite their ecological importance, the contribution of benthic foraminifera to ecosystem functioning has widely been overlooked.
Research projects I am involved in aim at understanding what drives general benthic foraminiferal diversity and community patterns, and how these may affect coastal marine ecosystems functioning, such as important processes like particulate and dissolved fluxes at the water-sediment interface. My research is often framed in studies that assess present and past anthropogenic impacts on benthic macrofauna and foraminifera.
MY LATEST RESEARCH
This work published in Environmental Pollution is part of the ongoing research conducted at LOG on microplastics leachates. Noticeably, it is part of a bilateral collaborative project PHC Sakura France-Japan with our colleagues from the University of Shimane and the JAMSTEC laboratory.
We identified several gaps that we believe may hamper progress in this emerging area of research and discussed how they could be bridged to further our understanding of the effects of the compounds released by plastic items on benthic foraminifera.
This work published in Marine Pollution Bulletin is the outcome of the work conducted in the sub working group "intertidal and transitional areas" of the international FOBIMO working group.
​This work contributes to the ongoing work aiming at confirming benthic foraminifera as a biological quality element. In this study, benthic foraminifera from intertidal and transitional waters from the English Channel/ European Atlantic coast and the Mediterranean Sea were assigned to five ecological groups using the weighted- averaging optimum with respect to TOC of each species.