The EU 2020 Biodiversity strategy and 7th Environment Action Programme highlights the importance of halting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services by preserving ecosystems and fully integrating environmental requirements into policymaking to face climate change.

Marine coastal ecosystems are European priority habitats as almost half of its population lives in its maritime regions. The main challenge to help the EU deliver on these targets is to fill knowledge gaps on inter-relations between climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and to ensure an effective transfer of knowledge to relevant stakeholders.

Funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, the Marine Coastal Ecosystems Biodiversity and Services in a Changing World (MaCoBioS) brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts, who will work in Northern Europe (UK, Ireland, Norway) the Mediterranean Sea (Spain, France, Italy) and the Caribbean Sea (Martinique, Bonaire, Barbados).

The project's chief objective is to ensure the efficient and integrated management and conservation strategies to help the most-important marine coastal ecosystems (seagrass beds, coral reefs, mangroves, coralligenous and calcareous bio-concretion assemblages, salt marshes and kelp forests) to face climate change.

MaCoBioS logo

Four specific objectives have been developed by the MaCoBioS team:

  • Develop new empirical models on the interaction between climate change, biodiversity, functions and services in marine coastal ecosystems along a geographical gradient from the tropics to the sub-polar regions, incorporating indicators of the ecological condition in the functional modelling of marine coastal ecosystems.
  • Establish a framework to assess the vulnerability of marine social-ecological systems under climate change scenarios. We will develop vulnerability indices specifically for that purpose.
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of nature-based solutions and protection measures at enhancing the resilience capacity of marine coastal ecosystems and the delivery of services, with the end goal of providing long-term solutions to climate change threats.
  • Provide evidence-based guidance for marine policy formulation and innovative research pathways to support policymakers in developing cost-effective strategies and create further research opportunities to meet the targets of EU strategies on biodiversity and climate change. 
Pierre Failler Portrait

Media ready expert

Professor Pierre Failler

Professor of Economics

Pierre.Failler@port.ac.uk

Economics and Finance

Faculty of Business and Law

PhD Supervisor

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Ewan Pierre Tregarot Portrait

Mr Ewan Tregarot

Research Fellow

ewan.tregarot@port.ac.uk

School of Accounting, Economics and Finance

Faculty of Business and Law

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Project co-members and institutions

  • Nova Blue Environment (Martinique, France): Dr Jean-Philippe Maréchal

  • Institut Océanographique Paul Ricard (France): Dr Rémy Simide, Dr Sylvain Couvray, Ms Aurélie Vion, Mrs Patricia Ricard

  • Fundação Gaspar Frutuoso (Azores, Portugal): Dr Artur Gil, Dr Andrea Zita Botelho, Dr Caterina Fonseca, Ms Cristina Seijo

  • Maynooth University (Ireland): Dr Tim McCarthy, Dr Gema Casal Pascual

  • Stichting Wageningen Research (Netherlands): Dr Erik Meesters, Dr Mattijs van der Geest, Dr Lisa Becking

  • Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas: Dr Francesc Maynou, Dr Silvia de Juan, Dr Montserrat Demestre

  • Université de Montpellier (France) : Prof. David Mouillot, Dr Sébastien Villéger, Dr Nicolas Loiseau

  • Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (Italy): Dr Silvia Torresan, Dr Elisa Furlan, Dr Giovanni Coppini, Dr Marco Marcelli, Dr Ivan Federico, Dr Vuong Pham, Mr Christian Simeon

  • Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (International Organisation): Mr Justin Ahanhanzo

  • Freie Univeristät Berlin (Germany): Prof. Reinhold Leinfelder, Dr Georg Heiss, Dr Juan Pablo D’Olivo, (Dr Diego Kersting)

  • Lund University (Sweden): Prof. Emily Boyd, Dr Torsten Krause

  • University of Exeter: Prof. Callum Roberts, Dr Julie Hawkins, Dr Bethan O'Leary

  • The University of West Indies (Jamaica/Barbados): Prof. Hazel Oxenford, Dr Hugh Sealy, Ms Debbie Emamdie

    Universitetet i Oslo (Norway): Prof. Stein Fredriksen

  • Humming Drone (Martinique, France): Mr Vincent Fayad, Mr Jonathan Suau

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