Overview

The Plentzia Marine Station (PiE-UPV/EHU) is the University of the Basque Country´s (UPV/EHU) marine research infrastructure, established in July 2012. It is located in a refurbished building constructed one century ago to fight against tuberculosis and bone disease, 15 km away from the main Campus. Participation of PiE-UPV/EHU in EMBRC is subsidised by the Provincial Council of Bizkaia and the Basque Country Regional Goverment. PiE-UPV/EHU is a centre for promoting research, education and dissemination for the protection of ocean and human health and wealth, and for promoting environmental science, technology and awareness. PiE-UPV/EHU houses 10 research groups. Its research is focused on: 1) conducting high-quality experimentation under controlled laboratory and field conditions; 2) studying phenomena in the areas of cell and molecular biology, genetics, physiology, toxicology, stress biology and systems biology; 3) applying advanced methodologies of experimentation with marine organisms, in vitro assays, omics, cryotechnology, spectroscopy, microscopy, image analysis and data treatment.

Ecosystems

• Intertidal rocky shores
• Intertidal sandy shores
• Mudflats Estuaries
• Natura 2000 site

 

Ecosystem access

• Coastal research vessels (On-site service)​​​​​​​
  • Semi-rigid inflatable boat
• Sampling equipment (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Provision of vehicles
• Other ecosystem access (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Fully equipped mobile laboratory and 4x4 vehicle to sample the intertidal rocky shores and beaches

 

Biological resources

• Biobanks (On-site and remote service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Biscay Bay Environmental Biospecimen Bank (BBEBB): frozen and paraffin-embedded samples, histological sections and shell/otolith bank
  • Biospecimens: samples, data sets, High resolution images
• Culture collections (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Provision of microalgae from the PiE-UPV/EHU Basque Microalgae Culture Collection (BMCC)
• Marine model organisms (On-site and remote service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Provision of mussels, sea urchins and other experimental marine organisms
• Species collected upon request (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Sampling of planctonic and intertidal feral species and access to commercial fisheries from the Bay of Biscay

 

Experimental facilities

• Aquaria and tanks (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Three rooms with different capacity aquaria (15 units of 500 l; 15 of 1000–1500 l; 8 of 2500–4000 l)
  • Algal culture
  • Fish and marine invertebrates 
  • Toxic algae room PL2 room (PL3 biosafety cabinet with 10x 40L aquaria)
  • Chemical exposure
  • All aquaria facilities provided with independently regulated photoperiod and temperature (except mesocosms), high-quality seawater (300000 l/day) and air supply. Flow-through, static or semistatic water supply systems for experimentation with toxicants
• Mesocosms (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Access to outdoor mesocosms (2 units of 20000 l)
• Dry labs (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Microscopy and bio-imaging platform (advanced light/fluorescence microscopy, high-resolution slide scanning platform and expertise in image analysis, stereology and planimetry)
• Wet labs (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Histology
  • Molecular biology and omis technologies platform (transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics)
  • Cell culture
  • Chemical analysis
  • Dissection room and two equipped multi-use laboratories for visiting scientists
  • Histochemistry and biochemistry
  • Cell separation and fractionation
  • Fish embryo toxicity testing unit and microscale toxicity testing room: toxicity bioassays

 

Technology platforms

• Imaging (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Access to a slide scanner, inverted and regular light microscopy, epifluorescence microscopy
• Molecular biology and omics (On-site and remote service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • DNA bank, biomarkers, barcoding
  • Evolutionary analysis
  • qPCR
  • Toxicogenomic analysis
  • Metabolomic analysis
• Bioassays (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Toxicity bioassays
• Other technology platforms (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • High-throughput histology analysis

 

E-services

• Data analysis tools and software (On-site and remote service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Remote sensing using satellite-derived daily datasets

 

Expert advice

• Experimental design (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Coastal monitoring experimental design
• Other expert advice (On-site service)​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • Marine experimental infrastructure and facilities design; histopathology; biomarker analysis

 

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PiE-UPV/EHU also offers lecture theatres, conference auditorium, seminar room, on-site dining room