Unveiling insidious effects of environmental and man-induced change: when ecology and ecotoxicology meet

Bruno Castro
Université de Minho, Portugal
I completed my PhD in Biology in 2007 (University of Aveiro, Portugal) and I am currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biology and a researcher at the Centre of Molecular and Environmental Biology (CBMA) of the University of Minho (member of Arqus alliance). My early post-graduate formation was in ecotoxicology and I later progressed onto ecological aspects of freshwater ecosystems, namely food-web interactions. My current research interests lie in the boundary between ecology, ecophysiology and ecotoxicology, as I investigate how freshwater organisms, particularly invertebrates, cope with natural and anthropogenic stress on their multiple dimensions, considering the ecological and evolutionary context. In this talk, I will present some case studies of my attempts to address ecologically relevant scenarios of anthropogenic change, motivated by the need of solid scientific underpinnings to approach the current threats to freshwater ecosystems and to tackle the consequences of man-induced disturbance.