Responsibilities

• Supervision of Ph.D. students
• Member of coordination committee
• Assistant Coordinator

Research Interest

• Energy budgets of benthic invertebrates
• Critical temperatures and temperature tolerances of upwelling macrobenthos

Abstract

• My research is focused on the influence of temperature on ecological and physiological parameters, integrative coordination of biochemical and physiological adaptations in animals, their limitations and dependence on environmental factors, identification of crucial and key mechanisms with the aim of generating mechanistic and causal explanations of ecological and evolutionary phenomena. The work includes ecological aspects, such as determining changes in energy budgets and general population dynamic parameters. Because mitochondrial function is a significant component of respiratory demand, I have measured the capacity of mitochondrial energy production and thermal sensitivity of mitochondrial respiration of different scallop species. I have also used temperature-dependent changes in enzyme function (i.e. CS) as an additional tool to estimate temperature acclimation and adaptation of scallops. Besides my ongoing studies I am currently expanding my lab skills to include more molecular approaches, such as (i) RT-PCR to determine the expression of Hsp70 – RNA and (ii) measurement of RNA:DNA ratios.
• Within CENSOR I am ‘Assistant coordinator’ and member of the ‘Steering Committee’ in CENSOR. Furthermore, I have been a core member of the group initiating the application with main responsibilities in the work packages ‘Ecophysiological constraints and aquacultural demands’ and ‘Integration, Dissemination, data and resource management. Besides supervision of Ph.D. students (e.g. Manolo Rojo, Aldo Pacheco, Jose Riascos) I am one of the principal scientists responsible for the work package ‘Integration, Dissemination, Data and Resource Management'.

Keywords

• Energy budgets, physiological adaptations, thermal tolerance, population dynamics of marine invertebrates