OGS

National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics – OGS

Associated Member

The CoSMi collection is maintained at the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics – OGS in Trieste. The mission of CoSMi is to isolate, cultivate and identify marine microorganisms by combining morphological observations and molecular analyses, and to make them available to the scientific community in order to promote collaboration and networking at national and international level but also to the food, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and energy industries. CoSMi includes about 100 microalgal strains mostly isolated from the Gulf of Trieste (Northern Adriatic Sea, Mediterranean Sea), such as potentially toxic and non-toxic dinoflagellates, diatoms responsible for blooms, coccolithophores and flagellates, and provides a costantly updated database that allows users to search all available resources and related data, ensuring legal compliance in terms of management of the collection and Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) of the preserved resources. In addition to the  valorisation and conservation of marine microalgae resources, CoSMi offers additional external services such as strain isolation and identification, set up experiments for academia and industries, preparation of starter cultures for aquaculture and ecotoxicological tests, transfer of know-how for the public/private sector, and training. Finally, the CoSMi team is active in public outreach and communication on the biodiversity of microorganisms – especially microalgae – and their importance for the marine food web, climate change studies and other environmental dynamics.

Collection:

• CoSMi – Collection of Sea Microorganisms