Christophe Guinet

Christophe Guinet serves as CNRS Research Director and Deputy Director at the Chizé Center for Biological Studies (CEBC), affiliated with Aix-Marseille University where he holds the Director of Oceanology position. His career since 1992 centers on marine mammals as bio-indicators for polar ocean dynamics, leveraging their natural behaviors to collect critical environmental data.

His research operates through two primary frameworks:

• Deploying instrumented seals (hooded seals in Arctic, elephant seals in Southern Ocean) as bio-samplers to gather physical (temperature/salinity), biogeochemical (oxygen/phytoplankton), and biological parameters from extreme depths (2000m+), with elephant seals providing 99% of Antarctic ice pack profiles distributed via MEOP portal
• Investigating fisheries-cetacean conflicts, particularly killer whale/sperm whale depredation in French Southern Territories' toothfish fisheries through the OrcaDepred program

These approaches uniquely address climate change impacts on polar ecosystems and predator demography.

Guinet has supervised approximately 30 PhD and 40 Master's students, producing 200+ publications while leading CEBC's Marine Predators Team. He actively promotes polar conservation through public scientific communication and oversees infrastructure including SNO-MEMO observation networks.