From 4th to 7th of February 2019, BETA Technological Centre attended the first conference organized by the SIBECOL, which was held in Barcelona.
The conference aimed to be the kick-off of the Iberian Ecology Society (SIBECOL) a new scientific society, joining ecologists from Iberian countries, whatever the system or approach they work on. Several groups have supported this initiative: The Spanish Association of Land Ecology (AEET – http://www.aeet.org/), the Iberian Association of Limnology (AIL – https://www.limnetica.com/en), the Spanish Society of Ethology and Evolutionary Ecology (SEEEE – www.etologia.org/) and the Portuguese Ecological Society (SPECO – http://www.speco.pt/en/), as well as a group of Iberian Marine Ecologists
The conference addressed the great transdisciplinary and integrative background of Ecology. The objective was to highlight those crosscutting ecological concepts shared by the different branches of this discipline (limnology, marine ecology, terrestrial ecology, theoretical ecology), regardless of the targeted system. But also, to exchange ideas and approaches that are common to different specialties in Ecology, and to provide a platform to discuss how ecological sciences can help to deal with the huge environmental transformations induced by human societies.
In this context, all the work done in the LIFE DEMINE project related to the assessment of the ecological impact of metal mining effluents was presented. The PhD researcher of BETA Tech Center, Lídia Vendrell, presented how the LIFE DEMINE technology is highly effective on decreasing the high ecological impact caused by non-treated mining effluents when discharged in water bodies.