Scientific news

Focused on the topic “Microbes in a changing world: diversity and biogeochemistry” ,the fourth edition of Ramon Margalef Summer Colloquia started yesterday, organized by the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM) and the Associació Catalana d’Oceanògrafes i Oceanògrafs (ACOIO).

The colloquia consist in a series of annual summer meetings between recent PhDs students and researchers with more experience, celebrated in the ICM in July every year since 2013.

A study published by researchers of the ICM in the journal Plos One, and recommended in F1000Prime, shows for the first time the element concentration in individual cells of phytoplankton, including the so-called "light elements" (carbon, nitrogen and oxygen).

From 30th May to 3rd June, the ICM hosts the course "Modelling aquatic ecosystems With Ecopath, Ecosim and Ecospace". It is a 30-hour course (15 theoretical and 15 practical) that deals with concepts and procedures about models of aquatic ecosystems, and introduces the ecological modelling software that can be used in personal computers.

Researchers of the ICM participate in an international study that maps the distribution patterns of the two most abundant genera of marine phytoplankton: Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus. These organisms play a key role in the carbon cycle by absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide, and are the responsible of about 25% of the primary production of organic matter in the oceans. The work, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), defines new phytoplankton populations in certain areas of the oceans.

From 30th May 30 to 3rd June, Barcelona hosts the V International Symposium on Jellyfish Blooms, the most important event about this topic, which is celebrated in Europe for the first time. The organizing committee is formed by scientists from the ICM –with Veronica Fuentes and Josep Maria Gili as main organizers–, the University of Alicante and the Natural Science Museum of Barcelona, with the support of the Barcelona Aquarium, which is the venue of the event.

Russian roulette is a game of deadly consequences subject to luck. The life of its participants depends on the chance that the trigger detonates the single bullet left in the cylinder. A study led by the ICM, with three researchers of the Department of Marine Biology and Oceanography, reveals for the first time how a parasite of dinoflagellate algae randomly attacks its hosts, similarly to that macabre game. In this analogy, the likelihood that a bullet is fired corresponds to the algae susceptibility to the infection.