Juan Manuel Valero Rodríguez

I am a marine ecologist whose career has been extensively linked to environmental impacts in coastal ecosystems. I obtained my PhD from the U. of Melbourne in 2020 and my work focused on the properties of macroalgae for bioremediation. Overall, my academic life has offered me many interesting topics to study, namely: impacts of fish farm escapees; effects of aquaculture nutrients on pelagic processes, taxonomy, abundance and composition of pelagic species; effects of aquaculture on benthic organisms and the use of macroalgae bioremediation of anthropic-derived nutrients and other human-induced effects on the environment. Here at the UiB, I am currently invested on the study of seasonality-induced changes in fucoids and their distribution under a climate-change context, a project funded by the SEAS programme*. Dexterity in the analysis of high-latitude macroalgae responses to changing environmental conditions is key in modelling future outcomes and establishing management policies involved in adjacent fields such as conservation or exploitation. Through my two main collaborators I am linked to several interesting research groups: Kjersti Sjøtun (Fjord and Coastal Ecology group) and Øystein Varpe (Theoretical Ecology Group & Seasonal Ecology Group).

*This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101034309.