After nineteen lectures on the current challenges of marine research, the Café con Sal series brought down the curtain on its ninth edition this Tuesday with the intervention of Iratxe Rubio, researcher at the Future Oceans Lab (CIM-UVigo) and the Basque Center for Climate Change. In the last twelve months, some of the most relevant specialists in different fields of oceanography have passed through the Toralla Marine Science Station, along with emerging researchers, both from the University of Vigo and from other R&D centers in Spain and other countries such as Chile, the United Kingdom and Italy.
In this way, the cycle is already facing the preparation of what will be the tenth edition, thus completing a decade as a meeting point between researchers, students and professionals in the marine sector in order to share knowledge, generate debates and new ideas that serve as the seed of possible collaborations.
Stable capacity and active debates
Alba Hernández, head of communication and dissemination at the CIM, stresses that the assessment of the 19 conferences of this ninth edition, both in relation to the level of the speakers and attendees and the organizers, “is better every year, as attendance continues to increase”. This 2019, 371 people participated in the cycle, including research staff from the University, other research centers such as IEO, IIM or Cetmar and even companies and government entities related to marine sciences, such as the Ministry of the Sea. The capacity is stable, explains Hernández, “and the debates tend to be very active and dynamic and the knowledge of the work areas of each of the people we meet in the corridors of the Ecimat greatly helps collaboration between the staff and the best performance of the research center’s services”. In addition, the reports are broadcast live through UVigo-Tv and can also be consulted at any time in its repository.
Regarding the content, the topics that arouse the most interest are the transversal ones, “which can be applied to many fields other than marine research”. Although the theme is usually the reason why attendees decide to come to the Ecimat conference hall, the head of Dissemination points out that another decisive factor is the speaker himself, “who attracts followers due to his scientific background, his collaboration with other entities, his experience as a speaker or even his personal ability to attract the public”.
Preparing the tenth edition
Alba Hernández explains that at Ecimat they are already working on the program for the tenth edition, “which will try to accommodate all the agents involved and/or interested in marine research in our city or our surroundings”. The international aspect will not be left aside either, “holding those conferences aimed at a more specialized audience in English and inviting foreign speakers who come to Ecimat to develop their experiments”.
Climate change, protagonist of the last session
The last of the sessions of this edition took place this Tuesday with the presentation by Iratxe Rubio, a doctoral student at the Future Oceans Lab (CIM-UVigo) and the Basque Center for Climate Change, who presented some of the challenges caused to international fisheries by climate change with the talk Impacts of climate change on tropical tunas, how can we adapt an international fishery?.
In his doctoral thesis, Rubio addresses the spatial impacts and adaptation options to climate change in international fisheries from a holistic, social and ecological perspective. His work is part of the CLOCK (Climate Adaptation to Shifting Stocks) project, led by Elena Ojea (FOL, CIM-UVigo) in collaboration with the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), and funded by an ERC Starting Grant. The project aims to identify and understand the new challenges posed by climate change in marine systems and to develop an adaptation framework that integrates fisheries management in the context of socio-ecological systems, in order to ensure the sustainability of resources and livelihoods in the long term.
In light of the impacts of climate change already observed on fisheries, she explained that improving and understanding the adaptive capacity of socio-ecological systems (SES) is expected to provide climate-resilient development pathways. In her speech, the scientist presented how the views on the adaptive capacity needs of different organizations of an international fisheries SES are related to their connectivity and social organization. This allows exploring in which domains of adaptive adaptation actions are likely to have the greatest influence and which organizations could facilitate them, which is crucial when adapting to climate change.
All CIM outreach and dissemination activities are financed by the Xunta de Galicia, under the FEDER/FSE Galicia 2014-2020 Operational Program.
Source: DUVI
