Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Ashleigh Smythe was invited to be a keynote speaker in a symposium titled “Meiofauna – Comparative Morphology and Evolution” at the second International Congress on Invertebrate Morphology, held in June at Harvard University. Smythe’s presentation was titled “Marine Nematodes:  Unfathomable Diversity or a Sea of Opportunity?” 

Meiofauna are small animals found in sand, including some entire phyla (e.g. Kinorhyncha and Gastrotricha) and major groups of other phyla (e.g. Platyhelminthes, Arthropoda, Annelida, Nematoda).  In nearly all marine sediments, nematodes are the most abundant and diverse members of the meiofauana.  The conference included 250 invertebrate zoologists, primarily from Europe and North America.