Observadores del Mar - Crust?ceos Dec?podos

Observadores del Mar - Seawatchers is an internet platform aimed at connecting citizens and scientists to investigate together the current state of our seas and oceans. Citizens can participate by contributing with their observations and experience. We wish to understand the effects of global warming, pollution, biodiversity changes, invasions of alien species and overfishing in marine ecosystems. To this end, we collect observations and sightings on the distribution and abundance of marine species, the emergence of rare or invasive marine species or the signs of change in ecosystems (mortality of organisms, amassing of surface and bottom pollution).This platform of projects, linked to ongoing research is coordinated by the Institute of Marine Sciences of Barcelona (ICM-CSIC) and relies on the collaboration among citizens scientists from different national and international centers. The main challenges we have are: (1) to detect global warming impacts in biology and distribution of species; (2) to inform about the appearance and expansion of introduced or invasive species; (3) to inform about the presence of warning species such as jellyfish or pufferfish; (4) to expand the knowledge about biology, habitat and distribution of native species; (5) to report the pollution of coasts and sea bottoms and its impact in marine life and ecosystems