marine forest, human impacts & climate change

Benvinguts! Bienvenidos! Welcome!

I am a marine scientist studying global change in coastal ecosystems.

I investigate cliamate change, environmental change and other human impacts in marine forests, foundation species of marine macrophytes, such as seagrasses and seaweeds.

My general approach consists of developing manipulative field and lab experiments in combination with observational field studies. Towards that purpose, I draw on techniques that span ecology, ecophysiology, biogeochemistry, and oceanography.

My research addresses questions in four main areas

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Seascape ecology

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community ecology

ecosystems resilience

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coastal carbon cycling

 

Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Bodega Marine Laboratory of the University of California, Davis and at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, where I study how marine macrophytes influence seawater carbonate chemistry. In particular, how seagrass meadows and macroalgal beds (including kelp forests) can serve as natural tools to help to mitigate ocean acidification effects in coastal areas.

​Previously, I did a PhD in seascape ecology at the Ecology Department of the University of Barcelona. I studied how the coastal landscape composition (which habitats are present in the coast) and configuration (how these habitats are spatially distributed) affect the functionality of coastal ecosystems. Specifically, I looked at how seagrass ecosystems spatial configuration and seagrass habitat fragmentation and patchiness affected main ecological processes within the habitat:

1) nutrient transfer and trophic interactions
2) blue carbon storage and burial in seagrass sediments
3) community structure effects on associated faunal assemblages

During all my career I have been extensively involved in monitoring programs and benthic habitat mapping projects in marine coastal areas.

 

 

RESEARCH INTERESTS

 

Ecosystem resilience and functionality 

Carbon ecosystem services

Ocean acidification buffers

Blue carbon

Multiple stressors

Climate change refugia

Coastal nutrient cycling

Disturbance ecology

Trophic interactions

Remote sensing and benthic habitat mapping

Monitoring the past and present to understand the future