Josep Mª Gasol

Senior Researcher

I am a CSIC Research Professor interested in planktonic microbe abundance, activity and diversity, and their ecosystem effects and I thus study the factors that regulate planktonic microorganism abundance and community structure (size, functional and taxonomical structure), and how the physical changes in the marine environment affect these parameters. This is approached by empirical analysis of data bases of organism abundance, growth and loss rates, generated mainly in cruises; by mesocosm and microcosm experiments; and by the combined use of image analysis, flow cytometry and metabolic fluorescent probes together with sequencing of marker genes or the whole DNA. While I did my PhD working on the microbes of one of the most interesting (and small) lakes in the world, Lake Cisó. I then worked at McGill University in Montreal where instead of focussing on one lake I broadened to as many lakes as possible. Of course, the next step was to work in the Ocean, the “great vast lake”… with special interest in the Microbial Observatory of Blanes Bay, where I coordinate the long term research which has operated continuously since 2001. I am the coordination of the Generalitat de Catalunya Excellence Research group “Diversitat i Funció Microbiana en Ambients Aquàtics”, and a member of the CSIC research group “Ecology and Genomics of Marine Microorganisms” My research has resulted in more than 260 scientific papers (H index of 61).