Researchers

Dr. Odei Garcia Garin

Project: Margarita Salas postdoctoral position (2022-2024)

Funding: Ayudas para contratos Margarita Salas 2022 financiadas por el Ministerio de Universidades y la Unión Europea Next GenerationEU/PRTR y por el Plan de recuperación, transformación y resiliencia, y por la convocatoria complementaria de ayudas para la recualificación del sistema universitario español para 2021-2023

Expertise: I am a marine biologist specialised in the occurrence, distribution and abundance of marine litter and its impact on marine fauna. I’m focused on the analysis of plasticizers, microplastics, trace elements, the monitoring of floating marine macro-litter and marine vertebrates using drones and vessels, and the modelling of microplastics through the marine food web. These skills are key to assessing the impact of anthropogenic activities on marine wildlife and designing specific management programs. I obtained my PhD in Biodiversity at the University of Barcelona with an Excellent Cum Laude with a dissertation entitled “Interdisciplinary evaluation of the presence and distribution of marine litter (floating macro-litter, microplastics and plastic additives), and its impacts on marine vertebrates”.

Dr. Maria Bas

Project: JdC postdoctoral position (2022-2024)

Funding: Ayudas para contratos Juan de la Cierva-formación 2020 MCIN/AEI y Unión Europea “NextGenerationEU/PRTR”.

Expertise: I am a marine ecologist specialised in trophic ecology and historical ecology, mastering trophic (Stable Isotopes Analysis), temporal (SIBER), and genetics (DNA extraction and amplification) techniques. These skills are central to study the ecology of wildlife and predict the impact of environmental changes and anthropogenic actions to design precise management programs. I have special interest in understanding the ecological role of marine organisms and their trophic links in the marine food web and how natural factors and human activities may change these processes. My research is developed within a multi-interdisciplinary framework to provide holistic solutions to manage conservation problems in an ecosystem approach. I obtained my PhD degree in Biology at National University of Mar del Plata and it was focused in marine ecosystem from South-Western Atlantic Ocean. After my PhD, I have done more research at the University of Barcelona studying the trophic ecology of Magellanic Penguins and Mediterranean turtles from different periods. I am a member of Q-MARE international group from Past Global Changes as a leader. The aim is to disentangle climate and pre-industrial human impacts on marine ecosystems and I collaborate with scientists from all around the world. Apart from this historical ecology research I am also interested in maritime spatial planning, because I was involved in set the foundations from the maritime spatial planning for the Catalan Government.

Website:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria-Bas

https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=56417450300

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8553-6557

Dr. Dorota Szalaj

Project: Mejora del conocimiento científico-técnico para la sostenibilidad de las pesquerías demersales del Mediterráneo occidental – SOSMED (2022-2023)

Funding: Ministerio de Agricultura, Ramaderia y Pesca (MAPA) – Fondos de Recuperación Europeos.

Expertise: food web modelling, small pelagic fish, fisheries management

Google scholar

Msc. Laura Julia

Project: South and Tropical Atlantic – climate-based marine ecosystem prediction for sustainable management 2019-2023

Funding: Horizon EC 2020-Topic: BG-08-2018-2019-RIA- SEP-210482854

Expertise: Statistics, Multivariate Analysis, Regression Analysis, Parametric Inference, Distance Based Trajectory Clustering, Factorial Designs

Website

Dr. Camila Artana

Project: Marine heat waves under global warming: The Southwestern Atlantic, a study case – Severo Ochoa postdoctoral position (2022-2023)

Funding: Severo Ochoa ICM-CSIC

Expertise: I am a physical oceanographer and my work is mainly concerned with the dynamics of the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean, focusing on the strong western boundary currents. My current research focuses on Marine Heat Waves along the South American coast. I’m particularly interested in their predictability and their impacts on marine ecosystems. I wish to contribute to our understanding of ocean dynamics and their role in climate and marine ecosystems.

Website

Dr. Miquel Ortega

Project: Mejora del conocimiento científico-técnico para la sostenibilidad de las pesquerías demersales del Mediterráneo occidental – SOSMED (2022-2023)

Funding: Ministerio de Agricultura, Ramaderia y Pesca (MAPA) – Fondos de Recuperación Europeos.

Expertise: Bachelor’s degree in physics (UB). Master in Ecological Economics and Environmental Management (UAB), Director of Operations and Innovation (ESADE), PhD Environmental Sciences (UAB).

Topics: Fisheries food chain, fisheries and marine conservation policies, ecological economics, political ecology.

Google scholar

ORCID

CVN Fecyt

MSc. Lucía Espasandín Soneira

Project: Climate Change and Future Marine Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity (FutureMares) – 2021-2024

Funding: Horizon EC 2020 – Topic LC-CLA-06-2019, H2020-LC-CLA-2018-2019-2020

Expertise: Recreational Fisheries, Vulnerability analyses, Climate Change, Socioeconomic analyses

Dr. Valerio Sbragaglia

Project: Juan de la Cierva-incorporación 2019 (2020-2022)

Funding: Ayudas para contratos Juan de la Cierva-incorporación 2019 MICINN

Expertise: I am an integrative marine ecologist with a strong interdisciplinary interest in fisheries. My current integrative line of research can be subdivided in two major branches. The first one focuses on behavioural ecology and fisheries-induced evolution. In particular, I aim to understand how animal behaviour affects fisheries and ecological processes, and vice versa, how fishing affects animal behaviour and thus ecological and evolutionary dynamics. The second one aims to integrate citizen science and digital data from social media into marine ecology and fisheries management. In particular, I am using the emerging approaches of conservation culturomics and iEcology (use of digital data for studying human-nature interactions and ecological processes) in a marine recreational fishing context.

Google Scholar

Dr. Francisco José Ramirez Benitez

Project: Severo Ochoa postdoctoral position (2021-2022) // TRIATLAS (2020-2021)

Funding: MICINN // Horizon EC 2020-Topic: BG-08-2018-2019-RIA- SEP-210482854

Expertise:

My research focuses on global change ecology and marine biodiversity conservation, with a special emphasis on investigating the long-term trends in key environmental and biological variables in the world’s oceans; identifying those marine areas most at risk due to climate and human-driven environmental changes; evaluating wildlife responses to environmental changes in highly-impacted marine systems; and designing suitable management alternatives to enhance ecosystems’ resilience to climate change and to ensure a sustainable balance between marine biodiversity conservation and human use of ecosystem services. Over the last several years, my research has contributed to advancing the state-of-the-art in these fields by producing the most spatially explicit assessments on climate and human impacts in the marine environment; providing new insights on the biological consequences of climate change and overfishing; and devising new approaches to identifying key areas for marine biodiversity conservation. To accomplish these goals, I have worked at different levels of ecological complexity (from individuals to communities and ecosystems), with different study models (e.g. seabirds, cetaceans and waterbirds), and in various biogeographical areas (from template to polar regions).

Website

WoS Researcher ID (Publons): I-3553-2014

SCOPUS Author ID: 55612439700

ORCID: 0000-0001-9670-486X

Dr. Konstantina Agiadi

Project: Deep-time Climate Change Impact on Marine Food Webs (2020-2022) Profile photo for Konstantina Agiadi

Funding: Lise Meitner Fellowship project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)

Expertise: geologist, paleontologist with expertise of fossil fish otoliths

Website

Dr. Joan Gimenez

Project: JdC postdoctoral position (2021-2023) – PELWEB & PELCAT (2018-2019)

Funding: Ayudas para contratos Juan de la Cierva-formación 2020 MICINN // MINECO – Plan Nacional // Generalitat de Catalunya – FEMP EU

Expertise: Conservation ecologist specialized in trophic ecology, spatial ecology and marine conservation planning of marine top and mesopredators, mastering trophic, spatial, and abundance techniques. These skills are central to study the ecology of wildlife and predict the impact of environmental changes and anthropogenic actions to design precise management programs. He has special interest in understanding the ecological role of marine organisms, their distribution patterns and their trophic links in the marine food web that allows their persistence and how natural factors and human activities may change these processes. His research is developed within a multi technique framework to provide holistic solutions to manage conservation problems in an ecosystem-based approach. He obtained his PhD degree in Biodiversity at University of Barcelona with an Excellent Cum laude with the dissertation of “Ecology and Conservation of cetacean in southern Iberian Waters”.

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Website

Dr. Jennifer Rehren

Project: Predicting marine species distribution and identifying priority areas for conservation – comparing and coupling food web and Bayesian hierarchical modelling approaches (2020-2021)

Funding: DFG Fellowship (Germany) and National Geographic Explorer Grant

Expertise: Spatial modelling, food web modelling