Santiago Hernández León

Santiago Hernández-León is a biological oceanographer at the “Instituto de Oceanografía y Cambio Global (IOCAG)” in the Canary Islands. He obtained the degree in biology in 1980 and received a Ph.D in Oceanography in 1986 from the Universidad de La Laguna (Canary Islands).

He is professor (chair) of zoology in the Marine Sciences School at the “Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria”. He was Vice-Dean of this Faculty from 1994 to 1998, and Dean from 2004 to 2005, and at present Director of the IOCAG. His research interest is related to the effect of climate on the ecology and physiology of plankton communities.

He is working on the role of microplankton, mesoplankton, and micronekton in the oceanic carbon flux from the Arctic to Antarctica, but he is especially interested in the assessment of the biological carbon pump and how the ocean is exporting and sequestering carbon. He is also interested in the study of trophic cascades and how they affect the ocean biogeochemistry.

At present, he works on the development of a new technology to remove and sequester carbon dioxide in the deep ocean.

• Biological Oceanography
• Zooplankton Physiology
• Ecology