ECIMAR program studies the Mediterranean emblematic ecosystems

See the list of species sampled during the field trips

The Mediterranean Sea represents less then 1% of the total ocean surface but shelters between 4 and 18% of the world’s marine biodiversity!!

The ECIMAR programme focuses on model communities living in shady conditions: the coralligenous and the semi-dark caves. These communities offer an important specific diversity (e.g.:1600 for the coralligenous) of which a large part has little or not been studied.

The Mediterranean hard substrate communities: a biodiversity that has been little investigated. Among the ECIMAR main objectives:

* Characterise the chemical diversity of a model marine community
* Save this mediterranean "chemical heritage" in a database
* Promote this biodiversity in the biomedical fields (bioactive molecules) and environmental fields (diversity and stress indicators), and thus marine chemical ecology research in the Mediterranean