Specific training activities for the FishMed-PhD program: course units

Activities to be carried out by Doctoral candidates

Individual PhD research projects will merge the limited available knowledge with new insights generated by FishMed-PhD to assess fishery and ecosystem status and integrate this knowledge into a wider policy and social matrix of transparent and usable outputs that are urgently needed by policymakers, managers, and stakeholders. FishMed-PhD program will combine interdisciplinary approaches in novel ways, envisaging four research work packages. WP1: Organism Biology & Physiology. Students will investigate ecosystem responses to drivers of change (e.g climate change) using a multi-scale approach from organism to population scales, by conducting studies (molecular, physiological, macroscopic growth) under controlled conditions and in situ. WP2: Environmental Monitoring & Conservation. Students will use remote sensing, species distribution modelling, and citizen science approaches to assess Mediterranean Sea biodiversity status and stressors. Moreover, students will learn to assess hydrocarbon pollution and state-of-the-art bioremediation techniques, and to investigate the impact of microplastics on Mediterranean ecosystems. WP3: Ecosystem & Socioeconomic Modelling. Students will use physiological and autoecological descriptors, as well as long-term robust time-series analysis to simulate alternative environments and human use scenarios (e.g., fishery regulations, coastal development) in an ecosystem model. This model will be coupled with ecosystem services (e.g. fisheries, tourism, ecosystem resilience), to evaluate the ecological and socioeconomic impacts of the different scenarios. WP 4: Risks Assessment & Integration Into Policy and Society. Students will investigate the interactions among economic activities, and assess risks to ecosystem services. Students will contribute to decision support tools that can help policymakers choose the most sustainable scenarios and communicate the impact of these scenarios to different stakeholders and the public at large.