The University of Vigo (UVigo), in Galicia, northwest Spain, is home to the Marine Research Centre (CIM): an interdisciplinary marine science hub focusing on aquaculture and sustainable fisheries, marine pollution, climate change impacts, and marine renewable energy.
Its world-class Toralla Marine Sciences Station (ECIMAT) – part of EMBRC Spain – has state-of-the-art facilities to support cutting-edge marine research. In this Q&A, Jose González Fernández, a UVigo researcher responsible for the Mesocosms facilities at ECIMAT, gives us a tour of their mesocosm units and explains how they support researchers from academia and industry.
What mesocosm facilities do you have at UVigo?
ECIMAT is uniquely located on the southwestern margin of Ría de Vigo, Toralla Island. This area is characterised by high levels of primary marine productivity driven by the Northwestern Iberia upwelling system. This unique setting provides direct access to a wide range of ecosystems: including rocky and sandy intertidal zones, mudflats, estuaries, and seagrass meadows.
Our land-based facilities have two types of mesocosm: pelagic and benthic. The pelagic system comprises 12 units (with a capacity of 1.5 cubic metres each) placed in a 70-cubic-metre tank supplied with local running seawater. These infrastructures can support environment-controlled experimental research, such as experiments related to nutrient addition or ecological patterns in the plankton community. They can also be used in research related to climate change and grand ecological challenges, like heat waves or acidification impacts, and mitigation techniques, e.g. ocean alkalinisation.
The facility also has 12 one-metre-high tanks, each with a 700 litre capacity, for benthic experiments. The tanks can simulate the natural fluctuation of water levels during the tidal cycle to accurately replicate the real conditions experienced by intertidal organisms. This system has allowed researchers to conduct experiments to assess the effects of climate change, such as heatwaves, floods and environmental stressors on a range of marine organisms, from algae to bivalves, like clams or mussels. The facility also enables the study of marine plants such as the eelgrass Zostera marina.
We offer comprehensive monitoring and control of key environmental parameters, including temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, and flow rate. Temperature and salinity can be controlled in all tanks or individually to simulate changes of these variables during tidal cycles. This gives researchers precise control over environmental conditions, which they can adapt to suit their experiment. All our tanks are centralised and have real-time monitoring.
Why is this important?
We believe mesocosms are the ideal experimental approach to address grand challenges related to climate change and mitigation measures.
Mesocosm facilities allow research setups that closely approximate natural conditions. While laboratory experiments allow for precise manipulation, they often fall short of replicating real-world complexity. Modifying conditions in the natural environment presents a significant challenge. Mesocosms offer realistic conditions close to the natural environment while allowing us to use replicates and controls. They allow us to run experiments on a large scale and during a long period of time; often, several weeks.
What kind of research can you support?
Through EMBRC, 40+ researchers from Europe and beyond have accessed ECIMAT’s services in recent years. We try to support any researchers who are exploring these topics and could benefit from our mesocosm set-ups: from plankton ecologists and marine botanists to geologists.
How does your team help visiting researchers?
The Marine Research Centre has 10+ highly specialised technicians and managers working at the ECIMAT and 122+ researchers from various disciplines. Designing a mesocosm experiment is always challenging so these experts are on hand to help visiting researchers from public and private institutions around the world.
During the experiment design stage, our team can provide insights into what can and can’t be done using our facilities, the ideal volume for their experiments, and other practical considerations such as sampling logistics. They can also get involved in experiments and offer local expertise on the region’s ecosystems and biodiversity.
How can users access your research services?
Facilitating international knowledge exchange is important so we’re happy to host visiting researchers and collaborate with scientists around the world. Understanding how biodiversity in different regions respond to environmental changes is a vital part of global efforts to address the ecological challenges our oceans are facing.
You can find UVigo’s mesocosms in EMBRC’s service catalogue.
