2020-present : PhD candidate
2019-2020: Master 2 Student at École Polytechnique, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
2008-2012 : Student engineer at Institut Mines-Telecom Atlantique, Plouzané, France

Loïc Le Ster’s work focuses on studying phytoplankton in the open ocean sectors of the Antarctic and Subantarctic regions. The objective of his work is to describe how primary production in the Southern Ocean responds to climate forcing, quantitatively and qualitatively, to improve our understanding of the long-term impacts and ecological consequences of climate change. His project is defined according to 3 main axes: 1) quantifying phytoplankton biomass 2) describing phytoplankton community composition 3) studying the ecology of marine top predators (southern elephant seal). His work relies on in situ data collected by autonomous measuring platforms (elephant seals, BGC-Argo floats) or sampled during oceanographic cruises, in complement with remote-sensing observations (e.g. satellite ocean color). Loïc Le Ster is a PhD student at the Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche and the Centre d’études Biologiques de Chizé.