Agenda

Speaker: Bertolini Camilla, DAIS

Abstract:
The project MAREA was a restorative aquaculture project aiming to combine Ostrea edulis restoration with  mussels’ culture sites, to ensure protection from dredging and harvesting of adult.  Firstly a  literature review was conducted highlighting a key gap of knowledge on the recruitment processes. Growth and recruitment processes were then studied in detail with a combination of modelling and experimental approaches to understand the possibility of growing oysters commercially at the site starting from oyster spat recruited on collectors in the nearby farm areas. This would enable to assess the feasibility to both start a local farming chain and to enable reef expansion on different substrata on the seabed area. A Scope For Growth model was parametrised with empirical data from the lagoon, enabling the prediction of shell, somatic and reproductive tissues. The ‘opendrift’ larval drift model was also modified to predict O. edulis dispersal and settlement and implemented in the Northern Adriatic in different swarming periods with satellite derived forcings to understand the potential of exporting this method in the rest of the Adriatic region beyond the lagoon and provide tools for upscaling beyond. In the context of restorative aquaculture principles, the project quantified some of the ecosystem services that could be associated with restoration actions,  focusing specifically on carbon and nitrogen fluxes, starting from the bioenergetic model and  improving the understanding of carbon dynamics associated with shell growth and dissolution processes, providing another tool that will allow to expand beyond the study site.  The seminar will be an opportunity to share practical lessons learned during the project and further research questions.                                           

Bio Sketch:
Camilla Bertolini has a BSc(Hons) in Marine Biology and Costal Ecology from Plymouth University and a PhD in Biology from Queen’s University Belfast. After two years of postdoctoral research at the Netherlands Institute of Sea Research she became a researcher at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and was awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship .