Itziar Alvarez Ellacuria

Biography

Since 2009 I work as Specialized Technician at the IMEDEA Institute. From the beginning of my career (2004) I have juggled my job as a technician with my research activity. Recently (June, 2015), I got my Doctorate in Marine Science by the Balearic University (UIB) after the public exposition of the PhD Thesis entitled: “Multiscale environment-ichthyoplankton assemblage relationships in the Balearic Sea”. For the moment, I have contributed with 12 SCI papers and participated both in European projects (e.g. (SESAME (FP6), SARDONE (FP6), ECOKNOWS (FP7)) and also in Spanish-funded national projects.

Research Interest

My scientific interest focuses in the relationships among external factors (environmental effects at all scales, including global change) and internal factors (reproduction, behaviour) and the recruitment processes in marine species. Although being a specialist on ichthyoplankton, the fact that ecosystems are compound by open compartments interrelated among them, makes it necessary to investigate also on the closer compartments as marine fito- and zooplankton. Most of my scientific production focuses on the diverse relationships among those three compartments and also on their relationship with variations on environment as seasonality, distance to coast or ocean circulation among others. In addition, as a combined method to infer past events on the fish life, I have performed several works related to schlerochronology mainly focused in daily growth (larvae and juvenile in most cases) to relate changes in somatic growth with environmental variability. In other cases I have work also with seasonal rings following other objectives.