Ecosystems located in the Mediterranean Basin are projected to experience important changes in the rainfall dynamics and to increase its nitrogen (N) inputs as a result of the ongoing global change. Despite it is known that multiple environmental changes can interact in their impacts on ecosystem services producing non-additive effects that are unpredictable from single-factor studies, no research has been performed to disentangle the effects of the interactive global change drivers on soil processes in Mediterranean ecosystems to date. What are the synergistic effects of climate change and N inputs on soil processes in Mediterranean ecosystems? What is the role of the soil biological crust and its components in modulating resistance and resilience of soil processes to the synergistic effects of increased N and climate change? How ecosystem services are influenced? Answering those questions will have highly relevant implications on environmental policy and prediction of global change scenarios, with the ultimate societal objective of improving ecosystem management in Mediterranean ecosystems. Med-N-Change also has a clear potential on the economy since recovering damaged ecosystems services is much costlier than increasing their resilience to pressure. The strength of Med-N-Change lies in an innovative approach that couples microcosm manipulative experiments and the exploitation of a network of long-term N-addition experiments in three ecosystems across the Mediterranean basin. This project merges together well established research methods and elements of originality in a multidisciplinary approach combining ecology, biogeochemical processes, physiology and omics technology. Med-N-Change directly addresses two of the cross-cutting priorities established by the H2020 Work Programme – sustainable development and climate action – and thus reinforces the European competitiveness in N deposition and climate change research.

Understanding the mechanisms that generate phenotypic variation and their impact on the course of evolution is a central challenge in modern biology. The genetic architecture of development may limit or bias the phenotypic spectrum obtained after random mutation, deemed developmental bias. These phenotypic biases in turn may influence evolutionary trajectories. Despite the recognition of the importance of developmental biases in constraining and pacing evolution, there is no direct empirical evidence for this potential role. Here, I propose to tackle this key question using the ecologically-relevant avoidance to pathogens in the genetically-tractable organism Caenorhabditis elegans. To this aim, I will: (i) quantify and uncover mechanisms of developmental biases in avoidance behaviour; and (2) test the role of developmental biases on the tempo of phenotypic evolution. On the first objective, I will generate a novel panel of random mutant lines containing a transgene for whole-organism neuronal cell-fate identification, determine developmental biases in locomotor and avoidance behaviour, and uncover mechanisms of developmental biases. On the second objective, I will construct hybrid outbred populations with varying developmental biases to test their impact on the tempo of phenotypic evolution in an ecologically relevant scenario using experimental evolution. To achieve this, I will adopt an innovative interdisciplinary approach that combines my expertise in neurodevelopmental and behaviour genetics, quantitative genetics, genome-editing and know-how with the model C. elegans with that of the host lab in experimental evolution, behaviour ecology and host-pathogen interactions. Thus, promoting an active exchange of multidisciplinary expertise between the two parties. EvoBias will elucidate the role of developmental bias during the evolutionary process and its mechanisms in an ecologically-relevant scenario, and it will be a milestone towards my scientific independence

Seabirds are vectors of nutrients and can drastically change the conditions of their habitat through guano, rich in nitrogen and phosphorus. Guano functions as a potent fertilizer and influences primary producers by conditioning their abundance, biodiversity, and fitness. As part of a phenomenon estimated to be comparable in magnitude to other major biogeochemical cycles, seabirds become the most influential link in the places where they form their colonies. The objective of this project is to investigate the impact and importance of seabirds as pumps of primary productivity in the adjacent marine food webs of their colonies, and its implications to conservation and management of the oceans. To achieve this goal, I will adapt and apply a state-of-the-art method, Ecopath with Ecosim, developed to characterize food webs, in an innovative context: to describe the connectivity of nutrients between ecosystems by seabirds. I will estimate and compare the nutrient contribution by seabirds in subtropical and temperate marine environments surrounding their colonies and the spatial and seasonal extent of its influence in the marine food web; understand the impact of changes in seabird populations on the marine food web; and model impacts of global changes on the food web of key seabird foraging areas according to different ‘what-if’ climate and anthropogenic scenarios. I will do a secondment at Birdlife International with the aim to discuss approaches to this project, pass on the knowledge gained, acquire new perspectives and approaches to seabird research and conservation, and discuss the impact of this line of research for seabird conservation in the North Atlantic. The MSCA will prepare me for the next step in my career and will act as a springboard that will expand the opportunities of positions and projects to which I can apply, while being more competitive. As well as the possibilities of me getting a permanent position and lead a research group, as it is my goal.

The deposition of atmospheric dust is thought to provide nutrients that are essential for phytoplankton growth in large areas of the ocean, with implications for primary production and remaining oceanic food chain, as well as for the ocean's biological carbon pump. Amongst the main primary producers in open-ocean oligotrophic waters are the coccolithophores. By also including more opportunistic taxa that quickly respond to short-term changes linked to nutrient input, and by being both photosynthetic and calcifying, coccolithophores provide interesting perspectives as indicators of ocean fertilization by dust, and its contribution to the organic and inorganic oceanic carbon pumps. Given the huge amounts of Saharan-dust blown into and over the equatorial North Atlantic, a region where nitrogen fixation is co-limited by Fe and P, it is only likely to expect that dust will act as nutrient supplier for marine phytoplankton. Here, I propose to investigate the effects of Saharan dust deposition on the cell production, species composition, carbonate production and coccolith-Sr/Ca ratios on coccolithophore populations across the equatorial North Atlantic. The study will be based on seawater samples covering the entire photic layer and sediment trap samples collected between NW Africa and the Caribbean, complemented by a coccolithophore culturing exploring the response of key coccolithophore species to dust input. As the transatlantic array was lying directly underneath the largest dust plume originating from the African continent (12º N), and two events of dust deposition were clearly recorded during the sampling cruise, DUSTCO provides a unique in situ opportunity to investigate the potential of Saharan dust as a fertilizer. Ongoing multidisciplinary research in the region, offers an excellent context for this study. The obtained findings will be used to develop a dust-related coccolithophore-based correlation/calibration function.

The rapid growth of extra-solar planet (ESP) discovery and characterisation over the last two decades increases our hope to detect life signatures in other worlds in the near future. Given the variety of planetary atmospheres in our Solar System and the number of ESP observed so far, a vast diversity among ESP climate is expected. The study of ESP atmospheres is nowadays seen as the new frontier in Astrophysics, crucial for typifying planets in the habitable zone. Innovative and promising techniques, used so far to identify hot-Jupiter atmospheres, are envisaged to detect Earth-size planet atmospheres by exploiting high resolution spectrographs and large telescopes. To tackle this challenge, major efforts are devoted to 1) find closest ESP targets with the strongest atmospheric signature 2) develop 3D theoretical tools to predict realistic climates. In the perspective of detecting more and more close-in-orbit hot terrestrial planets, Hot-TEA proposes to address observational prospects to Venus-like planets, with the goal of studying how the planet’s atmosphere modifies the observables. With mass and radius similar to the Earth, but a completely different climate, Venus is the best analogue of those future targets. This proposal will ideally combine: my expertise on modeling Venus atmosphere, with the large know-how of the host institute in detection and characterisation of ESP systems, plus the vast expertise in modelling ESP atmospheres of the second host. To reach our objectives, a generic global circulation model adapted to Venus conditions will be used to: explore model sensitivity to unconstrained parameters, quantify the effect of those parameters on the observables, test extreme cases and propose a number of climate scenarios for the targets. The main outcome of Hot-TEA, key predicted observables, will open the way to interpret future observations during the next decade using a whole new generation of European instruments and missions.