Beca Doctorado: Understanding the 3D links between forage fish and top predators to advance ecosystem-based monitoring.

El Gobierno Vasco ha publicado recientemente el Programa de Formación Predoctoral para Personal Investigador no Doctor 2019/2020, que concede ayudas a la investigación para la realización de tesis doctorales en Universidades u Organismos de Investigación.
Un año más, desde Fundación AZTI queremos participar promoviendo la formación de investigadores/as para la obtención del titulo de Doctor/a y la adquisición de las competencias y habilidades relacionadas con la investigación científica de calidad dentro de un Porgrama de doctorado. 

Por ello, te presentamos a continuación la siguiente Tesis Doctoral que te damos la oportunidad de desarrollar en nuestro centro: 

 Description: 

The following PhD proposal will focus in understanding the links between forage fish and top predators to advance ecosystem-based monitoring in the Bay of Biscay. This PhD will be divided in four different chapters:

• Chapter 1. Applying machine learning algorithms to identify small pelagic fish schools. 
• Chapter 2. 3D characterisation of pelagic fish schools in temperate pelagic ecosystems.  
• Charper 3. 3D connectionn between forage fish and top predators.  
• Chapter 4. Are forage fish schools driving the spatial abundance patterns of top predators?  

In order to advance conservation and management efforts, the European Union has adopted the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, Directive 2008/56/EC) with the objective of achieving or maintaining Good Environmental Status (GES) of European waters by 2020. In order to help Member States assess and achieve GES in their waters, the European Commission has provided descriptors, criteria and methodological standards (2008/56/EC, COM Dec; 2010/477/EU). The JUVENA (and potentially BIOMAN) multidisciplinary survey series will constitute the main data sources for the project. The main objective of both projects is to characterise the functioning of the pelagic ecosystem in the Bay of Biscay, using multidisciplinary tools that allow information on the spatial distribution and abundance of phytoplankton, zooplankton, small pelagic fishes and marine top predators, as well as different oceanographic variables important for the characterising the pelagic realm to be collected simultaneously.