Scientific news

The second edition of the “Ramon Margalef Summer Colloquia” has finished on Friday 18th of July at the Institute of Marine Sciences (CSIC) with a closing event open to general public where the students of the Colloquia have presented the conclusions of the Colloquia.

From 7th to 18th July the Marine Sciences Institute CSIC from Barcelona lodges for second year the international course Ramon Margalef Summer Colloquia. This edition is included in the events of the commemoration of the tenth death of Ramon Margalef under the motto «What ecology can learn from natural and human-induced disturbances. A cross-system view» and the main topic is ecology in a multidisciplinar way as the scientific Ramon Margalef worked.

How does species richness vary with ecosystem productivity for marine phytoplankton? This question has fascinated biological oceanographers for decades. Phytoplankton communities are composed of many species of unicellular micro-algae. They are at the base of the marine trophic foodweb, growing and surviving by means of photosythesis by fixing CO₂; a process known as primary production.

On June 21, coinciding with the summer solstice, the ICM celebrated the Ocean Sampling Day, a day of exploration of the ocean, a campaign of simultaneous sampling at 167 stations located in different seas and oceans of the world and focused on the study of marine microorganisms. Coinciding with the sampling, an outreach event was carried out by scientists of the Department of Marine Biology and Oceanography of the Institut de Ciències del Mar and of the CEAB.

The Marine Science Institute (ICM-CSIC) opens its laboratories to Catalan students to build an oceanographic buoy. The activity is part of the project "MARduino: my buoy, our data and the sea", co-financed by the FECYT (Fundación Española para la Ciencia Y la Tecnología) and led by Carine Simon from the Biooptic group of the Marine Science Institute.

Microbes are the most important form of life in the oceans, playing key roles in ecosystem functioning at local and global scales. Yet, our knowledge on their diversity patterns and the structure of their communities is very limited, specially among marine protists (microbial eukaryotes).