Scientific news

European hake populations in the western Mediterranean Sea are overexploited. This is the conclusion of all the assessments made since 1992 until now by CSIC scientists at the Institut de Ciencias del Mar (ICM) and from other research institutions, like IEO and IFREMER. Fishermen and administrations have joined to tackle fishery pressure.

New results of Malaspina project are published this month in three articles at the Journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology. Led by scientists from the ICM, the studies confirm that among the thousands of studied microorganisms, about 50% correspond to new species. Two unexpected findings also reveal a high presence of fungi in the deep ocean and a great abundance of a symbiont organism recently discovered.

Studying the microbial diversity

In 1st April 2014, a quake around the northern city of Iquique reached a magnitude of 8.1 and triggered a tsunami. Despite that magnitude, experts were surprised that the quake was not as large and damaging as expected, and that it affected only a limited region.

Last Wednesday, September 23th, the Faculty of Geology of the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) hosted the opening ceremony of the new degree of Marine Sciences, given with the collaboration of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Albert Palanques, director of ICM, participated at the event, together with Carles Pedrós Alió, researcher at the Department of Marine Biology and Oceanography, who gave the inaugural lecture "The ocean: a microbial ecosystem."

38 scientists from 14 countries around the world met last week in the ICM to discuss issues about research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

Scientists of the Malaspina Expedition have confirmed that in tropical and subtropical oceans most of the nitrogen plankton needs are met by supply from deep water. This process exceeds the biological absorption of atmospheric nitrogen, a phenomenon also important in warm waters. These results, based on samples collected during the circumnavigation of ship Hesperides, have been published in the journal Nature Communications.