 Nudibranchia have always been my passion. To them I have tributed most of my research since 1975, which has allowed me to get to know well the ones inhabiting the Mediterranean Sea, not only their morphology and taxonomy, but also their anatomy and aspects about their biology and ecology. I have also felt attracted by other groups of opistobranchia and marine molluscs, mainly gastropods, and they have been subject to some of my publications.
The common link to all my research is the sea, an environment that gets to surprise you every time that you dive into it or you get samples in an indirect way. It has been over 30 years that diving allows me to collect nudibranchia and observe the main marine communities, learning about their structure. Some of my papers deal about this, mainly about alguicolae invertebrates, sea urchins and the ones in Formentera island.
Underwater robot Rovi I allowed my incoporation to Antarctic research in 1994 and since then I have had the opportunity to join several Antarctic surveys onboard the B.I.O. Hesperides and the R.V. Polarstern. Thanks to that, I got to know first hand the fascinating world of antarctic marine invertebrate communities. Recently, I have joined the Antarctic Invertebrates Chemical Ecology Research Group of the Departament de Biologia Animal of the Universitat de Barcelona. My participation in several research projects and surveys in the Mediterranean sea, Atlantic ocean, Caribean sea and Antarctic ocean allowed me to widen my knowledge on marine biology.
Underwater photography and, for some time, underwater video, have come with me in many of my dives across several seas. With this, I have been able to provide graphical documents for many conferences and talks about opistobranchia and other molluscs and invertebrates from the Mediterranean sea, Antarctic invertebrates or general Marine Biology. I think that the divulgation of scientific work is very important and thus I am always available to do so when I am required.
http://www.ub.edu/beb/castella/invertebrados/ballesteros/ballesteros.htm
http://opistobranquis.info/en/
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Manuel_Ballesteros
https://vidamarina.info/
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