Bio
Prof. Teruhisa Komatsu graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture, Kyoto University in 1976 and completed his Master's and PhD studies at the Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University. During this period, he conducted research on the interactions between the Sargassum community and the marine environment. He obtained the Doctor of AGreculture degree from Kyoto University. He became a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Agriculture, Kyoto University in 1984 and an Assistant Professor at the Ocean Research Institute, the University of Tokyo. He started research on the ecology of seagrasses and mapping their distribution using acoustics and satellites. From 1992 to 1993, he conducted research on the ecology of Caulerpa taxifolia and Posidonia oceanica at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis as a French Government Scholarship student. In 1997 he was promoted to Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo; in 2017 he became Professor at Yokohama University of Commerce. He was appointed Expert Advisor to the Japan Fisheries Resource Conservation Society from 2017 and Vice-President of the International EMECS Center from 2023. His research interests include the ecology of seagrass and Sargassum and their distribution mapping; he was the leader of Coastal Habitat Mapping Project at UNESO-Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Sub-Commission for Western Pacific (IOC-WESTPAC) from 2011 to 2023.

Bio
Maria Cristina Gambi, graduated in Biological Sciences from the University of Siena (Italy), worked as a researcher in marine biology and ecology at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples from 1983 to 2021, in particular at the Ischia Marine Center. Currently she is Assoiate researcher at the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics, OGS in Trieste. She has worked on systematics, ecology and reproductive and evolutionary biology of polychaete marine worms, and on plant-animal trophic relationships in the benthos in various vegetated coastal systems, especially seagrasses, such as the Mediterranean Posidonia oceanica. In the seagrass systems she described a new guild of detritus consumers, the borer’s organisms, as well as a new species of polychaete strictly associated. In the last two decades she has been interested in the study of the effects of Global Climate Change on habitats and benthic species, both for the aspects linked to warming (mass mortality events, alien species), and for the problem of ocean acidification. In this latter framework, in particular she is carrying out research with both a descriptive and experimental approach on species, communities and habitats of the hydrothermal systems of the Italian coasts, studying the responses and adaptations of Posidonia oceanica and its associated community to ocean acidification. She collaborates in the organization of national and international post-graduate specialization courses, dedicated to scientific Scuba diving in seagrass meadows and hydrothermal vents systems, and has been the supervisor of numerous degree and doctoral theses, and post-doctoral scholarships. Member of the Italian Society of Marine Biology (SIBM), she is the author of over 380 scientific publications in international journals and conference proceedings. The love for the sea and all its forms of life is above all a passion as well as a profession.