Introducing Alba´s research in Climate Change and spatial management

As part of the Campus Do Mar doctoral programme, students are assigned an Advisory Committee to monitor their progress and provide feedback and suggestions. FOL PhD candidate Alba Aguión had her first meeting with the committee on June 30th. As a first year student, Alba presented a general overview of her thesis, focused on the implications of Climate Change for marine resources under spatial management. During her presentation, Alba highlighted how zoning practices such as reserves and TURFs (Territorial User Rights for Fishing) arose without reference to Climate Change and thus, how crucial it is to explore the adaptation of those spatial strategies to the arisen warming scenarios.

Alba´s committee was formed by Henrique Queiroga (University of Aveiro) and Eréndira Aceves (University of California, Santa Barbara) as well as Elena Ojea and Gonzalo Macho (University of Vigo), Alba´s PhD supervisors. Since Alba will be using the Stalked Barnacle fishery as her case study (species with a planktonic larval stage), Henrique Queiroga provided very useful feedback in regards population connectivity – a key feature when it comes to spatial design. Eréndira Aceves shared her knowledge and experience designing spatial bioeconomic models, a tool that Alba will be developing to achieve her objetives. The meeting with the Advisory Committee has not only been a great contribution to the content of Alba´s research plan, it was also a great experience to practice how to present her work to other scientists. Good to go Alba!