RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
Climate research
Rocky shores are among the most thermally complex ecosystems in the world. We have been using remotely sensed and in situ data to characterise this complexity, assessing how much coastal areas have been warming, how temperature varies across scales, which are the main drivers of thermal variability, what is the thermal fingerprint of upwelling, or how do satellite-derived temperatures compare with temperatures measured at the shore.
Innovative instruments
We always try to use the most up-to-date methodologies available. However, this often is not enough, and we feel compelled to improve methodologies and to create our own state-of-the-art instruments. In fact, this ability to build instruments tailored to very specific research questions has allowed us to measure temperature in radically new ways, and sometimes to observe environmental patterns that have never been described.
Biodiversity surveys
We are also innovating in the way biodiversity surveys are made. Through the incorporation of data from sensors available in anyone's smartphone (e.g., camera, magnetometer, accelerometer) we are creating digital assistants to ease and streamline the collection and organisation of research-grade complex biodiversity data from the field, even by non-specialists.
Biogeography
Our research has always been characterised by an effort to reconstruct the history of change of the distribution of coastal species and comminitie
Over the last years we have been describing major biogeographic changes such as species invasions or extinctions, and seeking to understand the mechanistic link between those alterations and climate change.
Physiology
Understanding the physiological constrains of specific populations reveals the mechanistic links between climate, biogeography and biodiversity.
We have been using several techniques, from molecular biology (e.g., Heat Shock Protein qualification and transcriptomics), to non-invasive cardiac performance monitoring (with instruments that we've developed). Some studies are performed in the field wile others are done under controlled conditions in collaboration with Dr. Francisco Arenas' lab at CIIMAR.
