Joan Enric Cartes

Senior Researcher

Research line focused on a comprehensive and multidisciplinary study of deep sea marine ecosystems of the Mediterranean and Atlantic, which main objectives are: 1) identify environmental parameters that cause the distribution and diversity of Deep Sea organisms at different spatio-temporal scales; 2) Ecology (distribution, changes in biomass and migrations) of the fauna of the Benthic Boundary Layer at the level of water-sediment interface (suprabenthos) and water column near the bottom, i.e. about 50-100 m above the marine floor (zooplankton); 3) Dynamics and modeling of trophic webs in deep ecosystems (e.g. diets, origin of food and trophic levels by stable isotopy); 4) Importance of the anthropogenic impacts on the structure and trophic dynamics of organisms/ecosystems, always keeping in mind the natural variability; 5) reconstruction of ancient communities (chronoecology) and implications for the restoration of degraded communities. The philosophy followed has a consistent taxonomic basis and is based on original research, analyzing the numerous original field data generated and modeling the possible relationships between environment/biota or between trophic levels, following an approach from the concrete to the general.