Mission Oceans & MissionAdaptation to Climate Change: Offering access to state-of the art infrastructures to consortia

The Marine Science Station of Toralla Island (ECIMAT) is the most unique infrastructure supporting marine research at the Marine Research Centre (CIM) of the University of Vigo, offering top-tier resources and tailored services exclusively designed for marine research. ECIMAT is also part of European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC-ERIC). EMBRC is a distributed European Research Infrastructure that comprises 10 countries and more than 70 marine stations that enable access to services, facilities, and technology platforms to advance fundamental and applied marine biology and ecology research – while promoting the sustainable blue economy. Through EMBRC, ECIMAT provides services to researchers both from public and private institutions from all over the world and has participated in several European projects focused on topics such as marine ecology, climate change, aquaculture, imaging technologies and blue biotechnology, among others.

Located on the southwestern edge of Ría de Vigo, Toralla Island, ECIMAT enjoys a strategic position within the Northwestern Iberia upwelling system. This setting provides direct access to a diverse range of coastal ecosystems and offers researchers a unique opportunity to study and explore various marine habitats and their ecosystems in one consolidated area.

ECIMAT also offers advanced facilities and specialized services for marine science research. This includes dedicated laboratories for aquaculture and global change studies, offshore and floating mesocosm facilities for experiments, technological platforms for marine environment research, provision of marine biological resources and model organism culturing, access to coastal ecosystems via small boats and a 20 m research vessel up to the continental shelf edge, real-time oceanographic data support, and processing and analysis services for water samples, sediments, and marine organisms

ECIMAT counts on a team of over 10 highly specialized technicians and managers working at the station. In addition, users can rely on the scientific expertise available at the CIM-UVIGO that has an internationally consolidated position in biodiversity and ecosystem services, integrated management of the coastal zone, global change and pollution, aquaculture and sustainable exploitation of marine resources and renewable marine energies.

Therefore, our capacities allow to address some of the needs of the Mission Oceans and Mission Adaptation to Climate Change topics: ocean observation, (deep) ecosystems characterization, marine biodiversity studies, marine restoration, demonstration activities, pollution assessment, among others.