The collaborator of our group and one of our past members, Zeynep Ersoy is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the “Rui Nabeiro” Biodiversity Chair, MED – Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development, Universidade de Évora ( Évora, Portugal).

She is working in the Iberian Ponds project, led by Miguel Matias and Miguel Araujo and funded by European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), European Commission (EU H2020) and several other grants from governments of Spain and Portugal. The Iberian Ponds is a multi-site experimental facility at 6 sites in the Iberian Peninsula covering climates ranging from arid to alpine (Évora, Porto, Murcia, Toledo, Jaca,  Madrid). The aim of this facility is to assess the responses of aquatic food-webs to climate change.

Experimental ponds include 3 trophic levels: phytoplankton, zooplankton and macroinvertebrates. Her specific project is about testing size-abundance scaling across biogeographical gradients in multi-trophic pond communities. This scaling of body size with abundance provides key information on energy transfer and ecosystem functioning in the aquatic food-webs. Thus, understanding how the predator-prey interactions and energy flow under different climates will give valuable insight into the future management and restoration strategies of these ecosystems.