I’m a marine biologist and my research seeks to apply marine community ecology to the conservation and restoration of Mediterranean marine ecosystems. Examples include incorporating an understanding of biodiversity patterns, species interactions, habitat-species linkages and quantifying the cumulative impacts of multiple stressors on marine ecosystems
Through this website I would like to show my work. Here you’ll find information about my research projects, publications and conferences.
Dr. Emma Cebrian.
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Sciences
Department of Environmental Sciences, Botany
Campus Montilivi S/N, Girona 17071
Catalonia, Spain
E-mail: emma.cebrian@udg.edu
Research interests: Marine Biology, Biodiversity, Global Change, Invasive species, Conservation Biology, Benthic marine communities
Research group: MedRecover, Marine Biodiversity Conservation Group
My career as researcher has been devoted to the study of the organization of benthic marine communities, especially in the NW Mediterranean. These highly diverse communities allow to address a great number of relevant scientific questions dealing with the structure, the functioning and the main processes driving these communities. Mediterranean sublittoral rocky benthic communities are particularly sensitive to climate change, pollution and the spread of invasive species, among other disturbances. Currently, there is an increasing concern about the unexpected consequences on direct and potential combined effects of these disturbances on coastal communities. The study of these human impacts and their interactions has been pivotal in my career. I have focused in four different lines of research:
Raül Golo
Marine algae invasibility in the Mediterranean sea.
My research is focused on marine invasive algae thriving in the Mediterranean Sea and the process that may influence its invasibility in a climate change context. Specifically, I’m interested in how environmental conditions of the native and introduced range, as well as, invasive algae characteristics may determine establishment, spread, growth and impacts in the Mediterranean Sea. I’m using several approaches such are molecular analysis, niche modeling approach, and laboratory and field experiments.
Maria Elena Cefali
Distribución geográfica, predicción espacial y dversidad de los hábitats litorales en la costa catalana.
My principal scientific interest is focused on the identification of rocky habitats dwelling on benthic communities and to study their relationships with environmental factors to understand and predict their spatial and geographic distribution.
Edgar Casas
Biodiversity patterns of coralligenous outcrops over broad spatial and temporal scales in the Mediterranean sea: baseline data for conservation.
The main objective of his PhD. Thesis is to study the taxonomic diversity patterns in space (hundreds of kilometers) and time (decades) of coralligenous communities in the NW Mediterranean Sea to better understand their structure and dynamics under the effects of global change. During this period of time he has been learning taxonomy of macrobenthic species (mainly sponges, corals, briozoans, polychaetes and tunicates) based on image analysis, he has estimated abundance patterns using specialized image software, as well as has applied multivariate methods and statistical analyses of ecological data including biodiversity at a range of spatial and temporal scales.
Jana Verdura
Main factors determining conservation and restoration success of Marine Forest
My thesis project, is focused on the conservation and the restoration of the threatened species populations of Cystoseria’s genus, the main structural species dominating the infralitoral and ciraclitoral rocky bottoms of the Mediterranean Sea. By gathering information on the distribution of these populations, their conservational status, the population dynamics and the optimal parameters for the correct development, Jana hopes to get a step closer to developing new restoration methodologies that ensure the conservation of these marine forests. This thesis is granted by the IFUdG fellowship program from the University of Girona and envolved within the Fundación Biodiversidad (Cystoseira Forest Restoration) and MERCES European project.
Jorge Santamaria
A multidisciplinary approach to study marine algae invasions in benthic habitats from the Mediterranean Sea. A look at the past to understand the present and predict the future.
My research is focused on the effects that different invasive algae species have on native macroalgal communities from the Mediterranean Sea. In particular, I'm interested in what characteristics and traits of the native assemblages make the marine forests more suitable for being invaded and what are the synergistic effects that climate change and seaweed invasions might play on them. Then, putting all this information together, he expects to generate predictive distribution models that could aid in the design of effective management plans.