New edition of Ramon Margalef forum at the Faculty of Biology with oceanographer Carlos Duarte
“Parsimonious rules in complex marine ecosystems” is the title of the science forum to take place on Wednesday, November 20, at 10 a.m., in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Biology, on the occasion of the award ceremony for the International Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology 2019 for the oceanographer Carlos Duarte. This scientific forum is an initiative by the Faculty of Biology to provide dialogue and scientific dialogue among the awardees of the prize inspired by Professor Margalef -the first professor of Eclogy in Spain- and the students that course subjects related to the environment at the Faculty of Biology.
“Parsimonious rules in complex marine ecosystems” is the title of the science forum to take place on Wednesday, November 20, at 10 a.m., in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Biology, on the occasion of the award ceremony for the International Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology 2019 for the oceanographer Carlos Duarte. This scientific forum is an initiative by the Faculty of Biology to provide dialogue and scientific dialogue among the awardees of the prize inspired by Professor Margalef -the first professor of Eclogy in Spain- and the students that course subjects related to the environment at the Faculty of Biology.
The new edition of the forum is part of the activity program to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Professor Margalef, the first scientist who received the Saint Georgeʼs Cross in 1997. As part of these initiatives, in which several institutions and research centers from the Iberian Peninsula take part, the University of Barcelona joins the ephemerid with another activity on December 9 at the Historical Building.
The scientific forum will be presided over by Domènech Espriu, vice-rector for Research at the UB, and Rosina Gironès, dean of the Faculty of Biology. During this activity, the lecturer Jordi Flos, from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, will offer a draft of the oceanographer Carlos Duarte, member of the Red Sea Research Center of the UniKing Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
Like in previous editions, the forum includes a roundtable with open debate with the participation of the awardee and the researchers Dolors Vaqué (ICM-CSIC) and Mauricio Mencuccini (ICREA-CREAF). The session will be chaired by Professor Narcís Prat, member of the mentioned Department and the Research Group Freshwater Ecology, Hydrology and Management (FEHM) of the UB.
Furthermore, the CRAI Ramon Margalef Fund and Espai Margalef -an initiative coordinated by the professors Mercè Durfort and Narcís Prat, together with the Biology CRAI Library -will also show the scientific legacy of the Catalan ecologist and his relation to the winner of the new edition of the prize.
The oceanographer Carlos Duarte (Lisboa, 1960) is a distinguished expert on the study of ecology and the functioning of water ecosystems (marine and freshwater). He was the coordinator of the Malaspina expedition (2010-2011), and carried out his research activity in centers such as the Institute for Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC), the Centre for Advanced Stduies of Blanes (CEAD-CSIC) and the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA-CSIC-UIB). Duarte received the National Research Award Alejandro Malaspina (2007), the Rei Jaume I Research Award on Protection of Nature (2009) and Carlo Heip in Marine Biodiversity Sciences (2018) among other awards.
The jury of the fifteenth edition of this prize distinguished Carlos Duarte “as a versatile scientist, with outstanding contributions ranging from tropics to polar ecosystems, from great organisms to microbes, and from coastal systems to the open ocean”. “He is a deeply committed ecologist to communicate the scientific findings to a broad public and who highlights ocean solutions for some of the most important environmental problems of this century”.
Ecologist Ramon Margalef, a model for generations of scientists
The Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology is given by the Catalan Government in memory of Professor Ramon Margalef, emeritus professor of the Universit of Barcelona and a model for many generations of ecologists worldwide. So far, the award has been given to the experts Paul Dayton, John Lawton, Harold Mooney, Daniel Pauly, Paul Ehrlich, Simon Levin, Juan Carlos Castilla, Daniel Simberloff, Sallie Chisholm, David Tilman, Robert Ricklefs, Josep Peñuelas and Sandra Díaz and Steve Carpenter.