Antonio holds an M.Sc. in Environmental eco-nomics from the University of Copenhagen, and one in Natural Resource Management from the University of the West Indies, Barbados. He previously worked with the FAO, WWF, the Institute of Economic Research on Fishery and Aquaculture (IREPA), and the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station (SZN) - always extensively on the collection and analysis of fishery socio-economic data. Antonio's research focus lies in fishery eco-labelling, value chains, and the management and improvement of artisanal fisheries performance in marine protected areas through stakeholder involvement. He is currently a PhD student at the Department of Biology of the University of Pisa. In FutureMARES, he works on the identification of socio-economic strategies for the improvement of Nature-based solutions. Specifically, he focuses on building a bottom-up approach to management by gathering fishers’ perceptions and proposals to increase acceptance of existing and new protected areas.  

Erik is 30 years old and he is a fisheries ecologist. He currently works at the Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries in Bremerhaven (Germany) in the working group for the socio-economic analysis of fisheries and seafood production. His task in FutureMARES is to apply the bio-economic fisheries model FishRent to evaluate the potential effects of climate change and its social, ecological, and economic consequences on the North Sea demersal fishing fleets.

Erik finds that parametrising the model in accordance with the other project tasks and using their results to improve his assumptions in the model is challenging, but also a fun and intriguing task. It gives him the opportunity to cooperate closely with all the expert scientists participating in FutureMARES and to conduct exciting multi-disciplinary research.

María studied Biology at the University of Sevilla and holds an MSc Erasmus Mundus in Marine Biological Resources (IMBRSea). She is currently doing her PhD in FutureMARES at the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC) and the University of Barcelona. Her main goal is to give scientific recommendations for applying NBS for fisheries sustainability and climate change mitigation/ adaptation in the western Mediterranean Sea. 

María will work with a geographic information system and an ecosystem modelling approach (Ecosim/Ecopath/Ecospace) to explore the consequences of implementing NbS in a marine ecosystem under different scenarios of climate change. Within FutureMARES, she is also involved in Climate Risk Assessments to understand how species like sardine and anchovy might respond to climate change in the western Mediterranean Sea. 

Chiara currently works as a postdoc at the University of Pisa, Italy. She is a marine ecologist investigating the ecological impacts of multiple stressors on benthic coastal systems through field and mesocosm experiments. In addition, Chiara is interested in the effects of local & global stressors on marine macrophytes and the associated communities, and soft sediments hosting marine invertebrates. How can species interactions mitigate the effects of anthropogenic stressors on the structure and functioning of marine systems? Her main task in FutureMARES is to assess the vulnerability of habitat-forming species to climate change and the role of phenotypical adaptation and genetic connectivity in promoting their persistence under future climate scenarios. Chiara is also involved in the generation of spatial maps of climate-readiness in the configuration of MPA network in the Tuscan Archipelago to promote communication with stakeholders and policy-makers.

Cátia Monteiro is a marine biologist with a strong track record on studying the impacts of climate change on macroalgae. She is an expert on algae physiology, taxonomy, biogeography and genetics. Her work at CIBIO/BIOPOLIS focuses on the biogeography of rocky shores communities, its induced changes due to global warming and how these are modulated by their microhabitat.

Lucía Millán Agudo is a Biology graduate of Complutense University of Madrid, and holds a MSc in Biology: Biodiversity, Conservation and Restoration from the University of Antwerp. She is currently working as a technician at the ICM-CSIC doing Climate Risk Assessments in the framework of the FutureMARES project. Lucía is also involved in the management of the T-MedNet platform and worked for other European projects such as the the  MPA-Engage project.

Prior to that, she worked as an environmental consultant at Atecma, where she gave technical and scientific assistance to the European Comission for the application of the Habitats (92/43) and Birds (79/409) Directives. Lucia was also involved in projects such as LIFE INTE-MARES and other projects related to the manage-ment of MPAs, e.g. “Management effectiveness of marine Natura 2000 sites and other EU marine protected areas”

Chloé did her PhD at Ifremer in France and is now a postdoctoral student at INRAE. During her PhD, she studied the connectivity between spawning and nursery areas of a high economic value fish species, the European seabass. Now, she is focusing on the connectivity between marine and continental habitats of diadromous fish species - i.e., fish that migrate between land and sea for reproduction. In FutureMARES, Chloé developed a management tool that links the outputs of diadromous species distribution models at sea and in fresh waters to get a comprehensive overview of their distribution in the present and future, considering a globally changing environment. This tool will help local catchment managers and/or the European Working Group for diadromous species (WGDIAD) to integrate the land-sea interactions dimension in managing future biodiversity and ecosystem services; a topic often discussed but rarely tackled.