Plymouth Marine Laboratory (sometimes referred to as PML) in the city of Plymouth

Plymouth

Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 is an independent collaborative centre of the Natural Environment Research Council

Natural Environment Research Council

The Natural Environment Research Council is a British research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences.-History:...

 (NERC). PML's Chairman is Terence Lewis and PML's Chief Executive is Prof. Stephen de Mora.

They focus global issues of climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

 and sustainability

Sustainability

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...

. They monitor the effects of ocean acidity on coral

Coral

Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...

s and shellfish

Shellfish

Shellfish is a culinary and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environments, some kinds are found only in freshwater...

 and report this information to the UK government. It also cultivates algae

Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...

 that could be used to make biofuel

Biofuel

Biofuel is a type of fuel whose energy is derived from biological carbon fixation. Biofuels include fuels derived from biomass conversion, as well as solid biomass, liquid fuels and various biogases...

s or in the treatment of waste water by using technology such as photo-bioreactors

Biochemical engineering

Biochemical engineering is a branch of chemical engineering or biological engineering that mainly deals with the design and construction of unit processes that involve biological organisms or molecules, such as bioreactors...

. They work alongside the Boots Group to investigate the usage of algae in skin care protects, because of their content of compounds that adapt to protect themselves from the sun.

PML has a wholly owned trading subsidiary, PML Applications Ltd, which has been created to facilitate the exploitation and application of PML research and its products and to provide a more appropriate interface for working with end users, industrial and commercial partners.

Core Capabilities:
Biogeochemistry and systems science, Health of the environment and human health, Sustainable ecosystems and biodiversity

Cross-cutting capabilities:
Earth observation, Modelling, Microbial ecology, Molecular science, Blue biotechnology, Technical solutions, Socio-economics, Policy advice

History

The Plymouth Marine Laboratory was founded in 1988, mainly due to the recommendations of a House of Lords Report. It was formed by drawing some elements of the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association (MBA) with the NERC Institute for Marine Environmental Research (IMER).

On 1 April 2002, PML changed from being a wholly owned NERC research centre to an independent organisation with charitable

Charitable organization

A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...

status.

Affiliations

Founding member of the Plymouth Marine Sciences Partnership (PMSP)

Partner in the National Centre for Ocean Forecasting (NCOF)

Member of the Peninsular Microbiology Forum

Co-ordinator of the Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT)

Member of the Natural Environment Research Council's Oceans 2025 programme

Member and Secretariate host of the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO)

Non-country partners of the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA)

Member of the Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning (MarBEF) EU Network of Excellence

External links

• Plymouth Marine Laboratory