Marine Ecosystems research

Our two main areas of activity are:

Marine Ecosystem Functioning

Our activity is focused on collecting information enabling us to have a global vision of oceans and seas, and understanding their complex processes.

• Integration of ecosystem information: We collect all relevant ecosystem data enabling us to know and exploit ecosystems in a more sustainable way.
• Ecosystem structure – from genes to top predators: We analyse biotic components (characterisation of biodiversity, community structure and dynamics and their trophic relationships) and abiotic (habitats and environmental conditions) as well as environmental component impact on biological processes (growth, survival, mortality and recruitment); and in particular, those impacting commercial species.
• Marine ecosystem functioning: We strive to understand and describe physical and biological processes which take place in the ecosystem. One of our ultimate targets is to model these processes to carry out ecosystem operation simulations, improving our knowledge of ecosystem operation and for future simulations.
• Integrated ecosystem assessment: Knowing the ecosystem and modelling will enable us to generate tools to assess the ecosystem and simulate future scenarios.

Oceanographic characterisation of the marine ecosystem

At AZTI, we are experts in the oceanographic characterisation and study of the hydrodynamic processes that occur in the marine ecosystem, as well as their impact on resources and their uses.

• Environment characterisation: We apply existing and emerging technologies to observe and characterise marine environments.
• Physical processes: We analyse oceanographic processes to monitor and predict marine conditions, extreme events and their impact on our coast and on marine organism dynamics and in particular, on exploitable populations.