PhD student (UB)
Laura Figuerola Ferrando is a Ph.D.student at the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences of the University of Barcelona. Her Ph.D. supervisors are Dra. Cristina Linares and Dr. Joaquim Garrabou, and it will be developed under the National Project “Mediterranean coastal ecosystems in the Anthropocene: how marine heat waves are transforming marine benthic habitats? (HEATMED)”. The thesis project aims to improve our understanding of coralligenous habitats under the global warming effects in the Mediterranean Sea enlarging the spatial scales usually used. In particular, it will apply innovative tools to involucrate citizen science and promote a large scale assessment of the conservation status of coralligenous habitat-forming species. Moreover, it will assess the current and future distribution of main dominant coralligenous species and their environmental drivers. The final aim of this PhD is to provide useful guidelines for the conservation and management of Mediterranean coralligenous assemblages.
She just worked in a database of the distribution and demographic data of habitat-forming marine invertebrate species from Mediterranean coralligenous assemblages called CorMedNet, under the project “European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODNet)”, which was presented in the EMODNet Open Conference 2021 as a poster. Furthermore, she is working in a metanalysis of the global genetic patterns of habitat-forming marine species.
Previously, Laura collaborated with Dr. Ignasi Montero Ph.D.’s, doing experiments with Corallium rubrum and Paramuricea clavata in the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM – CSIC), analyzing photography’s, and calculating C. rubrum height.
Selected articles:
- Linares, Cristina; Figuerola, Laura; Gómez-Gras, Daniel; Pagès-Escolà, Marta; Olvera, Àngela, Aubach, Àlex; Amate, Roger; Figuerola, Blanca; Kersting, Diego; Ledoux, Jean-Baptiste; López-Sanz, Àngel; López-Sendino, Paula; Medrano, Alba; Garrabou, Joaquim; (2020); CorMedNet- Distribution and demographic data of habitat-forming invertebrate species from Mediterranean coralligenous assemblages between 1882 and 2019. DOI: 10.14284/467
- Montero-Serra I, Garrabou J, Doak D. F, Figuerola L, Hereu B, Ledoux J. B, Linares C (2018) Accounting for life‐history strategies and timescales in marine restoration. Conservation Letters, 11(1), e12341.
Contact: lfiguerola@ub.edu