CREAF

The Ecosystem Modelling Facility (EMF) is a small unit within CREAF specialising in statistical modelling, a simplified and mathematical way of approaching reality that allows predictions to be made. It has a special focus on the response of ecosystems to global change. The EMF aims at becoming a meeting point for people (from CREAF and beyond) interested in developing or applying models to predict the response of terrestrial ecosystems to drivers of global change, both for research or knowledge transfer purposes.

Check out EMF's new website

This action is part of the Severo Ochoa “ULandscape” funded in 2019 by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to support Research Centres of Excellence.

creaf-so-logo-eng.png

Soil laboratory

Soil ecology facility for physical, chemical and biological analyses of soil, conducted, for example, to determine the concentration of particular nutrients, the microbiology or the communities present in soil.

In recent years the laboratory has also been used for ecotoxicological studies of contaminated and decontaminated soil, some of them based on the facility's different bioindicators, such as Collembola (Folsomia candida), Oligochaeta (Enchytraeus crypticus) and Isopoda (Porcellionides sexfasciatus).

The laboratory is equipped with a calcination furnace for drying carbonates, organic material, etc.; a drying oven; a multi-plate absorbance reader, which is very useful for measuring enzyme activity; and various centrifuges. It is complemented by a smaller laboratory with Berlese funnels and a temperature-controlled room for incubation (in addition to the incubators available in both laboratories).

Chemistry, Chromatography and gas laboratories

CREAf has a laboratory for experiments requiring reagents, solvents, etc. It could be used to analyse different solids (concentrations of phosphorus, nitrogen, etc.) and for metabolomic analyses.

The facility is equipped with a centrifuge; a vortex mixer; a sonicator, which uses ultrasound to disrupt cell membranes in solids; a freeze-dryer; various freezers; and all the necessary chemicals (acids, bases, solvents).

There is another laboratory mainly used for experiments involving VOCs (compounds on the basis of which plant-plant, plant-animal and/or plant-atmosphere relationships can be studied).

The facility has a complete gas exchange and emission sampling equipment, two complete analysis stations, comprising liquid and gas injectors (capacity: 98 vials), heat absorption units, spectrometers, chromatographs, etc.

Acid digestion laboratory

Communal laboratory useful to all researchers at one point or another in their research. It is insulated to ensure safety when carrying out vapour-producing reactions.

The facility is equipped with two fume hoods; a conventional distiller; a Kjeldahl distiller, which is very useful for determining the nitrogen content of soil, water and food; and cabinets containing the main acids used in digestion procedures.

Can Balasc Biological Station

Biological station near Barcelona. Located in the Serra de Collserola Natural Park, one of the metropolitan area of Barcelona's largest and best preserved forest areas, Can Balasc has laboratories and greenhouses, a guest house with rooms for visiting researchers, and 100 ha of forests and experimental sites for research purposes. It is ideal for evaluating the effects of global change on Mediterranean metropolitan ecosystems, which provide essential ecosystem services and are especially affected by drivers of global change (land use changes, wildfires and invasive species). Several field experiments that have been running for more than 15 years and are part of the Spanish and European Long Term Ecological Research Networks (LTER-Spain and LTER-Europe) have been taking place at Can Balasc since 2012.

Pollinators Collection

Currently comprising tens of thousands of specimens of 750 different species of insect pollinators, this collection dates back to 2006, when CREAF's related line of research began, under the direction of Jordi Bosch and Anselm Rodrigo.

The collection has grown as a result of both sporadic captures and systematic, standardized sampling, mainly carried out using entomological nets, coloured traps, and nesting tubes for solitary bees and wasps. It includes samples from different parts of the Iberian Peninsula, such as Catalonia (Garraf, Montseny, Lleida, Olot), the Sierra Nevada, Cuenca and Burgos.

Complemented by a correlation database containing information on the abundance of certain species, their functional traits (e.g. body size, length of mouthparts) and any interactions observed (plants from which they collect pollen, types of parasites present in their nests, behavioural traits, etc.), the collection has been used to carry out molecular analyses and meta-analyses with various partner centres.

Cores of Mediterranean trees

As a result of the participation in the Forest Ecological Inventory of Catalonia, the Forestry and Fire Dynamics Group preserves more than 7,500 cores of typical trees of the Mediterranean area.

The collection comprises two core types: partial, where only a small part of the trunk has been extracted to estimate the growth in recent years, and entire cores, those with the whole series of time (up to the centre of the trunk).

In total, representatives trees, one of each diameter class, were extracted -from the 5 cm thickness of the trunk- in some 2,000 plots and of all type of species from Catalonia, except holm oak (Quercus ilex) and cork oak (Quercus suber) due to the nature of the wood of these species, since they do not have a typical growth ring.

This material has already been used in different scientific articles, to assess forest production, forest age, average growth, etc. and can be found in Can Balasc.