On Thursday, November 16, at 11:00 h, Rula Domínguez, a research technician in the Coastal Ecology group at the University of Vigo, presented the MARISCO project, as well as the preliminary results of her doctoral thesis, in the talk titled “Shellfish beds in Galicia: prevention of risks caused by extreme events on commercially important bivalves.”
The projected effects of climate change for the coming years along our coast indicate an increase in both the duration and frequency of heatwaves, as well as an increase in the intensity, frequency, and duration of heavy rainfall events. Both of these phenomena have a major impact on the estuarine ecosystem, particularly on intertidal organisms, which have very limited mobility and cannot escape the large influx of freshwater or extreme heat during low tides. These impacts are of even greater concern when they affect economically important resources, such as bivalves in the Galician rías. In this context, the MARISCO project was launched, aiming to study these effects and develop a predictive tool to support the management of shellfish resources.
Rula Domínguez, under the supervision of Elsa Vázquez and Celia Olabarria, researchers in the Coastal Ecology group at the Marine Research Center of the University of Vigo, is developing her doctoral thesis within the MARISCO project. Her research aims to explain how the environmental changes predicted under climate change affect the main species of shellfish beds—not only in terms of mortality but also at the sublethal level (growth, reproduction, scope-for-growth or growth potential, respiration)—with the goal of incorporating this information into predictive models for direct use in fishery management.
During the lecture, the speaker gave a general presentation of the MARISCO project and her doctoral thesis, presenting the preliminary results of some of the experiments carried out so far, in which they studied the eco-physiological responses of three clam species and the cockle to variations in salinity and temperature occurring in the shellfish beds.
The MARISCO project is supported by MINECO (CTM2014-51935-R), as well as Rula Domínguez’s predoctoral grant (CTM2015-51935-R), and by the Xunta de Galicia-FEDER (GRC2013-004). The project also involves researchers Sarah Woodin and David Wethey, funded by NASA (NNX11AP77G) and the US National Science Foundation (OCE1129401).
The conference took place in the auditorium of the Faculty of Marine Sciences at the University of Vigo at 11:00 a.m., was broadcast live at http://tv.uvigo.es/es/directo/1.html, and is available on UVigoTV.
Rula Domínguez’s presentation poster
Videoconference
