On July 29, at 11 in the morning, Estefanía Paredes will defend her PhD Thesis at ECIMAT:
Cryopreservation of marine invertebrate early-life stages : application in marine quality assessment and aquaculture
This thesis consists of the development of cryopreservation protocols for early developmental stages of marine invertebrate species: the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus, the oyster Crassostrea gigas, and two mussel species, Mytilus galloprovincialis and Perna canaliculus.
Marine pollution monitoring programs integrate traditional chemical analysis methods with biological parameters for the assessment of marine pollution, such as embryo-larval bioassays. The application of cryopreservation protocols for early developmental stages of sea urchins makes it possible to solve one of the main limitations for the widespread use of bioassays as an ecotoxicological tool: overcoming the seasonal variability in access to high-quality biological material.
Cryopreservation is also a very useful tool for the aquaculture production of marine species, ensuring a continuous source of stock throughout the year without the need to condition broodstock for out-of-season reproduction, and it allows the crossing of parental lines from different years.
Thesis supervisor: Juan Bellas Bereijo (IEO)
Thesis co-supervisor: Ricardo Beiras
