The Marine Research in Ecological and Social Systems group (IMSES) aims to understand the functioning, structure and dynamics of living marine resources and essential habitats, and assess their stability and resilience to cope with future changes. It also aims to analyse the importance and complex interactions of humans with the marine environment, considering ecological, social, cultural and political dimensions.

The "Environmental microbiology" group works on the study of ecological and autoecological aspects of prokaryotes thriving in natural environments by means of culture independent (metagenomics, clone libraries, fluorescence microscopy...) as well as by culture dependent (isolation, genomics, mass spectroscopy...) methods. The group focuses its work mostly on aquatic habitats, marine and hypersaline environments, and is specialized on bacterial systematics and bioremediation of polluted environments.

This research line is centered on a common core: the study of the physical mechanisms that can explain the dynamics of the coastal ocean system and its interactions with the nearshore and the open ocean, in a global change context. In other words, using a physical, biological and mathematical background, we study the underlying processes and the multidisciplinary effects of a well-defined complex and vulnerable system, the coastal ocean.

The aim of the TCE Group is to provide conceptual advance in ecological theory using as essential tools mathematical and computational techniques. Empowering ecology with fundamental principles of stochastic processes and quantitative methods. We are particularly interested in building a bridge between theory and data. The TCE Group is a highly collaborative and multidisciplinary research group that develops specific research lines and provides general theoretical foundations of observational and empirical research in ecology.

The of Group of Aquatic Macrophyte Ecology (GAME) focuses its activity in the biogeochemical and paleoecological aspects of the millenary accumulation in seagrass sediments. In the 2000's, GAME reported a high efficiency in the refractory accumulation of organic carbon in some seagrass species. This would be the origins of what we currently know as Blue Carbon. The dating of this sediments to calculate fluxes to the sink, revealed that the accumulation took place in a remarkable chronological order. This opened vast new vistas for the study of environmental change during the Holocene.

Our group conducts multidisciplinary research within the Natural Resources Area. We pursue developing an integrative view of functional ecology, built on a combination of approaches in cell biology, physiology, biogeochemistry, material science, bioconservation, biodiversity, and organismal evolution. This fundamental research is complemented with practical objectives.

Our research group is aimed to develop knowledge on coastal and marine sustainability by focusing on modern interdisciplinary social-ecological research. Its final goal is to provide a solid scientific basis to solve concrete present problems of sustainability inside our today’s social-ecological paradigm. In order to do that, the team members strongly interact with other different interdisciplinary groups of research.

The research activity of the group focuses on the main following lines: 1) Study of the molecular, cellular and physiological basis of fish reproduction 2) Development of environmental technologies, hormonal therapies, genetic engineering and reproductive cycle manipulation to control and study fish reproduction. Specifically the group activity is focused in the study of gonadotropins and sex steroids as key elements controlling gamentogénesis.

The group of “Fish reproduction and diversification” from IATS-CSIC was established in January 2004. It is made up by one senior scientist, Dr. Evaristo L. Mañanós, as the head of the group, a laboratory technician and punctually, students and visitors. The main research line is the study of the physiology and endocrinology of fish reproduction.