Cristina Linares About

About

Born in a Mediterranean Island (Eivissa, 1976) and being in the sea for as long as I can remember, especially fishing with my father, it is not surprising that the sea has always felt like home. It is my work and my life.

I went to the University of Barcelona to study Biology. During the last year of my studies I started to collaborate into the Medes Islands biological monitoring team led by Mikel Zabala. I started the thesis under the direction of Rafael Coma and Joaquim Garrabou entitled "Population ecology and conservation of a long-lived marine species: the red gorgonian Paramuricea clavata". After working in several Mediterranean marine reserves, thousands of hours diving and travelling to Santa Cruz (California) to expand my knowledge of demographic models with Daniel F. Doak, in December 2006 I received my PhD. in Biology from the University of Barcelona.

After my PhD, I spent two months at the University of Santa Cruz (California) and two years and a three months at the Centre d’Oceanologie de Marseille, CNRS. In 2009, I returned to the University of Barcelona first as Juan de la Cierva and since 2012 as Ramon y Cajal fellow (including two maternal leaves in 2012 and 2015). During this period, I realized research stays at the ARC Centre for Excellence of Coral Reef Studies (Townsville, Australia) working with Terry Hughes and the University of Hawai'i (Mānoa, USA) with Camilo Mora. Since April 2017, I am associate professor in the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences. In 2019, my research trajectory was recognized with an ICREA Academia award.

My research interests mainly focus on understanding the responses of Mediterranean marine benthic ecosystems to global change in order to provide useful insights for the conservation and restoration of marine coastal ecosystems. My research is highly collaborative and combines long-term series data, experimental studies using in situ and aquaria experiments and modeling tools. Using all these approaches, my research program has been centered in: 1) marine coastal ecosystems due to the increased pressure from human activities; 2) long-lived sessile species as model species given their fragility face to increasing disturbances and their role providing structural complexity to the communities; and 3) marine reserves and restoration actions, which are the pivotal tools for the conservation of marine ecosystems. Most of the results derived from my research activity intended to contribute to the conservation of marine ecosystems and this is reflected in several activities of knowledge transfer to entities and public administrations.

Address

University of Barcelona
Faculty of Biology, Department of Ecology
Avda. Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona
Spain

E-mail: cristinalinares@ub.edu
Tel: (+34) 93 403 13 75