The Team

	Xavier Turon Principal Investigator (PI) My research focuses on biology and ecology of benthic invertebrates, particularly ascidians, sponges and sea urchins. My taxonomic expertise is on ascidians, and they are my favourite beasts. Sponges and sea urchins came later, but earned their place in my heart, too.My main fields are population dynamics, reproductive biology, chemical ecology, larval biology and population genetics. I am fascinated by the way species and populations adapt to their environment, interact with each other, and are able to disperse from place to place. Thus, studying reproduction and population dynamics led me to analyze interactions and, particularly, the crucial role of allelochemicals in interspecific relationships. Larval biology followed naturally, as I realized that many of the processes that determine community dynamics occur at the first stages of development. The next step was to incorporate molecular tools to address simple, but as yet unanswered, questions: which species are you? where do you come from? who do you mate with? Recently, I have focused on molecular assessing of the diversity of benthic communities, in order to be able to study the hidden biodiversity, which is usually overlooked by conventional techniques.
	Owen S. Wangensteen Postdoctoral Research Assistant My main research interests include ecology of benthic invertebrate communities, molecular approaches to population structure and dynamics and assessment of the effects of Global Change on marine benthic communities. My favourite taxonomic group is Echinoderms, which I have used as research models to answer more general ecological questions.
	Magda Guardiola PhD Student The aim of my PhD thesis is the development of new molecular tools, based on Next-Generation Sequencing technologies, for the ecological assessment of marine benthic communities.
	Daniel Martin Consulting researcher My main research focuses on marine benthos, specially, polychaete annelids. I am interested in their taxonomy, ecology and biology, with a special emphasis in inter-specific relationships (e.g. symbiosis).
	Creu Palacín Consulting researcher My research interests range from meiofaunal communities dwelling in soft bottoms to littoral macrofaunal assemblies living on rocky benthic ecosystems.
	Iosune Uriz Consulting researcher My main research focuses in phenotipic, molecular and functional diversity of sponges, with a special interest in the symbiotic processes between sponges and bacterial communities.
	Sara Román PhD Student My field of interest is the study of benthic marine invertebrates. I am currently working on my PhD on meiobenthic communities of the deep sea (submarine canyons and continental slope). I am especially keen on the taxonomy, biology and ecology of nematodes
	Gemma Agell Lab Manager I am a senior technician at the Spanish Research Council. I am the lab manager of the Molecular Biology Laboratory of the CEAB. As such, I coordinate and oversee the services of the lab. The lab has protocols for safe working and quality control.