LARECO: Multidisciplinary tools to study cephalopod
paralarvae ecology
LARECO (CTM2011-25929) is a project financed by the Spanish Ministry
of Science and Competitivity since 2012 extending up to 2014. It is
entirely developed by the department of Ecology and Marine Biodiversity
(ECOBIOMAR) placed in the Marine Research Institute of Vigo
understand the ecology of cephalopod paralarvae in the Ría de Vigo (NW
Spain).
The objectives of this project can be reduced to three main topics:
- Molecular identification of the different cephalopod paralarvae found off
the Ría de Vigo, to assess their real diversity and abundance.
- Identify the zooplankton communities that cephalopod paralarvae
inhabit, and determine biological interactions on these communities, like
predation, parasite recruitment or mortality, .
- Examine the effect of behaviour (vertical distribution), zooplankton
communities and physico-chemical environment (water masses,
meteorology) on the spatio-temporal abundance of cephalopod
paralarvae.