The Section in Oristano of the Institute for the Coastal Marine Environment of the National Research Council of Italy (IAMC CNR) studies the interactions between marine organisms and their environment, the assessment of the state of the marine ecosystem to the prediction of its performance over time and space by means of numerical models and experimental investigations (in situ and laboratory experiments in a controlled environment). The main fields of research are (1) physical and biological oceanography with an emphasis on numerical modeling at coastal and sub-regional scale addressed to operational oceanography and ocean forecasting; (2) biology of organisms with the ecophysiology of fishes; (3) morphodynamics of coastal environments: relationships between hydrodynamics, sediment transport and variability of morphological features in lagoons, sandy littorals and continental shelf; (4) benthic ecology and food web analysis (C and N stable isotopes) in coastal marine and transitional ecosystems and implementation of UE marine Directives through the development and application of benthic indicators of ecological and environmental status; (5) Management and conservation of marine biological resources particularly relating to protected species and MPAs.