Who Lives Inside Azolla?

Francisco Carrapiço, PhD
Francisco Carrapiço is Professor at the Department of Plant Biology of the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon. He will take you to a journey down the microcosmos. Using Azolla as a case study, which is a water fern that lives on the surface of our Portuguese rivers and lakes, he will demonstrate how this fern forms a specific symbiotic association with Anabaena azollae, a bacterium that captures nitrogen from the atmosphere. To explain all this, he will use an optical microscope as well as your curiosity and imagination. Within this micro-ecosystem, these tools will take you where few have dared to go.