Future Oceans Lab: Second year!

As we begin 2019, it seems to be the right time to look back over the last year and take stock of all that happened at FOL, draw up a summary of the group achievements and face the new challenges that lie ahead.

Last year has been big in outreach achievements for FOL, and we feel that we are growing and reaching an international scope with our work. We are now part of the international climate change scientific community since our PI has been appointed as lead Author for the next IPCC 6th Assessment Report. We signed agreements with Consellería do Mar (Xunta de Galicia) and the Dirección Xeral de Desenvolvemento Pesqueiro that have been crucial for accessing high quality data. We gained new fellowships and prices and participated in new proposals with international collaborations.

We also had the visit of CLOCK project advisor Professor Ben Halpern, so that he could give advice on our research and get to know Galician small-scale fisheries first hand. For the first time FOL researchers have conducted research stays outside Europe with Alba and Sissi visiting the University of California Santa Barbara for a trimester. We are thankful to Campus do Mar (University of Vigo) for partially founding Alba’s stay and of course thank our host and advisor Professor Christopher Costello and all the SFG team for hosting us. Finally, we highlight the chance we had to visit Cambodia to teach students and learn from their experience with research in a very enriching experience thanks to the DOCKSIDE project.

FOL-team members continue leading their research and presenting their main findings on international conferences, including Iratxe’s debut in ICES/PICES in DC, Sissi presenting at the EAFE workshop and WCERE, and Diego and Alba presenting at the 3WSCF, among others. In these forums, we presented results of our ongoing projects CLOCK and PERCEBES on fisheries management for a sustainable future and adaptation to climate change. Moreover, Elena who this year signed the Oportunius agreement with Axencia Galega de Innovación (GAIN) continues publishing her work in scientific journals.

This has also been a very special year as we hosted two Master students in the lab. We have welcomed Francesca from the University of Copenhagen and Raquel from IMBRSea to work on their masters’  research. They developed a collaboration with FOL to assess shellfish and stalked barnacle small-scale fisheries climate vulnerability in Galicia respectively, with very successful results. Moreover, this summer, FOL supported a team of 5 collaborators, lead by Diego Salgueiro, to carry out the widest social-ecological survey in Galician small-scale fisheries in order to understand the adaptive capacity of fishers’ communities to climate change.

All these activities have been possible mainly thanks to the a great team of motivated people and the funding and institutional support of the European Commission through the ERC project CLOCK, the regional government (Xunta de Galicia) and the everyday support of our home institution, the University of Vigo.

We look forward to 2019, our third year where we have important milestones and innovations. We say thanks and good bye to the team members leaving; Sissi who is taking a position in Norway, in her hometown, Elena Fontán who finished her project at FOL, and Raquel, Francesca and Maria who are continuing their paths, and welcome the new members that will very soon join us. We look forward a third year of intense activity and great experiences and outcomes. Thanks for accompanying us!