Tutor: François Carlotti, CNRS Research Director
Title: Structure and functioning of marine ecosystems: trophic analyses, modelling and contamination
Summary:
The study of marine food webs has become increasingly important in recent years, due to the need to implement an ecosystem-based approach to management, which requires management decisions to be based on a comprehensive knowledge of all ecosystem components. Trophic interactions are particularly important for understanding how ecosystems function, and influence the flow of matter and energy between primary producers and all consumers. Focusing on marine trophic ecology, my research activities are at the interface between the biology and ecology of organisms, trophic modelling and chemistry (biochemistry and contaminants). They take an end-to-end socio-ecosystemic approach to ecosystems, from the forcing of environmental parameters on phytoplankton and zooplankton to top predators, including humans. The impact of human activities such as fishing and contamination have been, in all the studies I have worked on (North-East Atlantic, North-West Mediterranean and Black Sea), major elements that I have taken into consideration in the functioning of exploited coastal and offshore ecosystems.