On Tuesday, October 20, Catarina Alves and Marisa Gomes, predoctoral researchers from the Ecosystems and Global Change Research Group of the CBMA at the University of Minho, will present, within the Café con Sal program, the lecture Understanding community dynamics between species and habitats: Two projects – one goal.
The consequences of biodiversity loss and changes in community structure remain difficult to predict, given the complexity of interactions between species and the dependence of their functional roles within ecosystems. Exploring the functional and structural aspects of benthic and demersal communities in subtidal environments provides an ideal opportunity to improve the understanding of their distribution patterns and their dynamics within the ecosystem.
In this context are included the projects of Catarina Alves and Marisa Gomes, titled The influence of habitat conditions on key ecological processes for marine benthic fauna (HIIC) and The role of Zostera meadows in the distribution of demersal and benthopelagic marine animals (ZICA), respectively. The common objective of both projects, supervised by Pedro Gomes (CBMA, University of Minho) and Jesús Troncoso (Ecocost, CIM-UVigo), is to expand knowledge of the influence of different habitat conditions on benthic and demersal communities, while also developing the characterization of their composition and dynamics. The predoctoral researchers will examine the evolution of benthic communities through the analysis of the colonization process and will thoroughly analyze patterns such as the distribution of traits within the ecosystem.
During their lecture, the speakers will present the implementation and objectives of both projects, as well as the challenges to be addressed in the future in this field.
The work presented is funded by the ASSEMBLE PLUS program and forms part of the doctoral theses of Catarina and Marisa (DO * MAR doctoral program), funded by the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (PD/BD/150365/2019) and by the projects NextSea (ref. NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000032) and Atlantida (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000040).
The conference will be held virtually and will be broadcast live through the Remote Campus of the University of Vigo. To access, follow the following instructions:
- Click the access URL to the virtual room “S00-Auditorio Principal”: https://campusremotouvigo.gal/access/public/meeting/928607699
- Access as a student using the following password: 6rAsLWyz
- Select the access mode with microphone and keep it muted until the Q&A session.
The presentation will be permanently available on the CIM-UVigo and UVigoTV websites and channels.
