November 2022 – Large participation at the Small Pelagic Fish ICES/PICES conference

Our group participated intensively at the Small Pelagic Fish ICES/PICES conference in Lisbon. We participating giving a keynote, an invited talk, several regular talks and presented various posters.

The conference was exciting and was great to meet in person several friends and colleagues. Looking forward to future events!

 

October 2022 – MarinePlan starts

The new project MarinePlan just started. Three 3 exciting years are waiting for us!

The main aim is to develop improved transdisciplinary science for effective ecosystem-based maritime spatial planning and conservation in European Seas.

 

September 2022 – Ges4Seas starts

The new project Ges4Seas just started. We have 4 exciting years in front of us!

Coastal and marine waters are vital for the natural balance of our planet and for Human societies.  All coastal and marine ecosystem goods and services heavily depend on the level of human and environmental pressures,​ and their cumulative effects.

GES4SEAS will bring together relevant actors and stakeholders, to develop an innovative, compliant, and flexible toolbox in the context of adaptive Ecosystem-Based Management. Stakeholders and key competent authorities will be integrated in a Practitioner Advisory Board to co-create and validate the toolbox.

11 Learning Sites will be used to test, validate, demonstrate and upscale the toolbox in four European regional seas (Atlantic, Mediterranean, Baltic and Black) as well as in the Caribbean Sea.

Through these tools, GES4SEAS will ensure that Good Environmental Status is achieved and support policies at national, European and global levels.

May 2022 – Begins the IPBES assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health (the ‘Nexus Assessment’)

From the 16th to the 20th of May 2022 the first author meeting of the Nexus Assessment, the thematic assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health (nexus assessments) of IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, https://ipbes.net/), was held in Frankfurt, Germany.

More than 150 leading international experts, from every region of the world, are contributing as authors to the assessment. They met for the first time during five intense days to achieve an agreement on the content that the assessment will hold, and on the working process to achieve the final goal in 2024.

The Nexus Assessment will examine the interlinkages among the sustainable development goals related to food and water security, health for all, protecting biodiversity on land and in the oceans and combating climate change.

The researcher Marta Coll, from the Department of Marine Renewal Resources of the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC), is one of the three Spanish experts participating in the Nexus Assessment as a lead author of Chapter 4 about sustainable futures.

Dr. Coll states the importance of this assessment: “This is a challenging and very timely process, where we will analyse scientific evidence and local ecological knowledge to synthesise the essential links that are established between key ecological and socioeconomic processes to inform local, regional and international policy and management in the need to ensure a sustainable and livable planet for the future”.

The participation of Dr. Coll to this initiative is funded by the Spanish project ProOceans (RETOS-PID2020-118097RB-I00).

Read more.

La importancia de proteger los fondos marinos del Delta del Ebro

Científicos proponen la zona marítima del Delta del Ebro como área de restricción pesquera por su riqueza ecológica.

Un reciente trabajo científico, desarrollado por ONG y el CSIC en colaboración con pescadores locales, ha detectado la riqueza ecológica del área marítima del Delta del Ebro y proponen que esta se declare como zona de restricción pesquera.

Leer más:

https://www.europapress.es/sociedad/medio-ambiente-00647/noticia-cientificos-proponen-zona-maritima-delta-ebro-area-restriccion-pesquera-riqueza-ecologica-20220324134822.html

https://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20220323/8145593/zonas-recuperacion-pesquera-claves-estrategia-biodiversidad.html

Y el articulo científico:

Bastari A, Mascarell Y, Ortega M, Coll M (2022) Local fishers experience can contribute to a better knowledge of marine resources in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Fisheries Research 248:1-10

March 2022 – ProOceans workshop on modelling techniques

Under our Spanish Project ProOceans “Fostering the capacity of marine ecosystem models to PROject the cumulative effects of global change and plausible future OCEANS” we have organized a 2-day workshop to discuss modelling techniques available, their capabilities and challenges to model the global ocean.

We have discussed about marine ecosystem models, spatial statistical models, Bayesian/Frequentist approach, input data and model construction, outputs, other statistical and non-statistical models, multivariate, time Series, machine learning and computational models (AI).

March 2022 – Joint lab meeting with V. Christensen’s group

We organized a joint lab meeting with Villy Christensen group at University of British Columbia, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. We discussed students and postdoc projects and found common challenges and issues to deal with ecological modelling techniques. A very inspiring session! Let’s hope that next time it can be an “in person” meeting.

Plasticizers detected in Mediterranean sardines, anchovies and hake

Our recent publication about plasticizes detected in Mediterranean sardines, anchovies and hake has been featured in National Geographic.

October 2021 – Mediterranean small pelagic fish at SIMERPE (Vigo)

We presented the results of 4 years of projects on small pelagic fish at the first SIMERPE – Iberian Symposium on Modeling and Assessment of Fishery Resources (“Simposio Ibérico de Modelado y Evaluación de Recursos Pesqueros”)

We are very grateful for this opportunity, full of interesting discussions about achievements and challenges to evaluate marine resources and ecosystems and move towards the sustainability of the social-ecological system.

Octobre 2021 – Infographics of small pelagic fish

Our projects about small pelagic fish have produced very interesting results during the last 4 years.

We have summarized them in three infographics (made by Amparo Hidalgo):

You can download them from here

We presented them last week at the University of Girona during a very informative workshop organized by Jordi Viñas and Marta Muñoz about the state of European Sardine.