Our group addresses issues in biology of animal and vegetal benthic species, and in marine ecology, with emphasis on basic biology and application to conservation and management. Our research goes beyond the particular taxonomic groups and seeks to undertake integrated studies on the function and structure of the marine ecosystems. The application of new tools, conceptual as well as methodological (landscape ecology, molecular markers, isotopic analyses…) allowed us to tackle new problems so far untractable with conventional techniques in the fields of conservation of the marine environment and marine biology and ecology in general.
In the applied side, our group is active in integrated studies of environmental quality and human-derived impacts on the marine ecosystems (coastline alteration, eutrophication, arrival of exotic species…). Our group has also investigated the ecological basis of the production of bioactive secondary metabolites of pharmaceutical and biotechnological interest.
Our ultimate goal is to gain a better understanding of the function of the marine environment, with a basically biological approach but with a broad focus including from the molecular level to the global ecosystem level.
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