The Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche (LOV), UMR 7093, is the result of the merger of the LPCM and LOBEPM laboratories in 2001. The UMR's field of study is deep-sea and coastal oceanography, in its biological, chemical and biogeochemical components. In the field of biogeochemistry, the LOV is particularly interested in the flow of carbon to the bottom (biological pump) but also in exchanges at the atmosphere-ocean interface, and the cycle of oxygen, iron and elements. LOV's research in the field of marine ecology focuses more particularly on organisms drifting with the currents (plankton) but also on certain benthic groups.
The LOV is one of the two laboratories of the Institut des Sciences de la Mer de Villefranche (IMEV).