The Marine Zoology Unit (UZM) is a research group of the Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology that has shown a great capacity to attract external funding to pursue its scientific objectives and has a long record of international cooperation. The UZM has new and modern facilities in the Science Park and shares a building with the Experimental Aquaculture Plant of the Universitat de València. Since 1982 it has been conducting research on Conservation Biology and Parasitology of fish, reptiles and marine mammals.

Our research has an important applied approach, both for its interest in the management and conservation of marine species and the protection of their habitats, and for its importance in the analysis and solutions to parasitic pathologies in aquaculture. But we do not neglect aspects of basic research either, aimed at the study of evolutionary and ecological processes, especially in the context of parasite-host associations. Conservation biology research focuses on cetaceans, pinnipeds and sea turtles. The UZM keeps a record of cetacean strandings in the Valencian Community.

Our objectives have become progressively more ambitious over the years and we now also monitor strandings of sea turtles and interactions of cetacean and turtles with fishing gear in the waters of the Valencian Community. Since 1988, the UZM operates by delegation of the Valencian Government as the scientific body in charge of recording strandings and incidental catches of cetaceans and turtles in fishing gear in the Valencian Community.

The Marine Zoology Unit hosts the Mediterranean Database of Cetacean Strandings under the auspices of ACCOBAMS and the United Nations Environment Programme. In addition, the Unit has coordinated a comprehensive study funded by the Ministry of Environment within the EU Natura 2000 initiative. The aim of the study was to identify and designate protection areas for cetaceans and sea turtles in Spanish Mediterranean waters. Our contribution to the project consisted of carrying out aerial surveys in the Valencian Community and the Region of Murcia to obtain estimates of the size of cetacean and sea turtle populations. We have also conducted studies on the distribution, migration and nesting behaviour of sea turtles in Equatorial Guinea and the Dominican Republic, and on the diet of turtles and cetaceans in the Mediterranean.

The second research line at the UZM focuses on parasitological studies of marine vertebrates (mammals, turtles and fish), including taxonomic (both conventional and molecular), ecological and evolutionary aspects. Our pioneering studies on the ecological and evolutionary determinants of cetacean and sea turtle parasitic communities are worth mentioning. Some of the studies conducted by our group have used parasite data to obtain information on the migrations and social structure of marine mammal populations. Special attention should be given to the contributions in the field of aquaculture in the study of fish pathogens and their life cycles, with the design of mechanisms for the prophylaxis and control of parasites in Mediterranean fish farming.