Sandra Brucet

Sandra Brucet

Universitat de Vic - Universitat Central de Catalunya

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

Since 2015 I am an ICREA Research Professor at University of Vic and Coordinator of the Aquatic Ecology Group (GEA). I hold a PhD in Biology from University of Girona (Spain). After my PhD, I was a postdoc at the University of Oslo (2006) and the National Environmental Institute of Denmark (2006-2008), I worked as a research scientist at the European Commission-Joint Research Centre (Italy) (2009-2012), I was a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Aarhus (Denmark) (2013-2015) and a Visiting Scientist at the Middle East Technical University, Turkey (2013).
Since I created the group in 2015, GEA has grown considerably from the initial 3 researchers up to 21 members nowadays. In 2023, GEA has been awarded “Grup de Recerca Consolidat” distinction. Since its creation, GEA has obtained more than 30 competitive research projects, 7 PhD thesis were defended and more than 100 indexed papers were published.

Research interests

Our research focuses on the response of aquatic ecosystems and their biodiversity to global changes (e.g. eutrophication, habitat destruction, climate change), including the whole trophic structure from phytoplankton to fish. We focus on different aquatic ecosystems (lakes, rivers, ponds) and use complementary approaches such as experiments, surveys, latitudinal comparisons and models. Currently, an important line of our research is the study of the biodiversity and functioning of ponds ecosystems. Within this line I am coordinating the EU H2020 project PONDERFUL with the main objective to use pond ecosystems as Nature Based Solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate change and to protect biodiversity. I am also PI (at UVic) of the international EU Biodiversa+ project TRANSPONDER whose aim is to improve our ability to assess biodiversity and ecosystem change in ponds by optimising tools and developing protocols for biodiversity monitoring.

Selected publications

- Cuenca-Cambronero M et al. 2023, 'Challenges and opportunities in the use of ponds and pondscapes as Nature-based Solutions', Hydrobiologia, vol. 850, pp 3257–3271
- Miranda R, Bartrons M, Brucet S & Benejam L 2023, 'Long-term monitoring on a new channelized stream section: changes in mesohabitat, composition, and size structure of fish assemblages', Restoration Ecology, vol 31, e13995
- Cunillera-Montcusi D, Bou J, Mehner T, Brucet S, Arim M & Borthagaray AI 2023, 'The European freshwater
Distributions, 29, 8, 997-1008
- Vo HT, Vrachioli M, Frick F, Sauer J, Brucet S, et al. 2023, 'Socio-economic or environmental benefits from pondscapes? Deriving stakeholder preferences using analytic hierarchy process and compositional data analysis', Journal of Environmental Management, 342, 118298
- Boll T, Erdogan S, Aslan Bicki U, Filiz N, Özen A, Levi EE, Brucet S et al. 2023, 'Fish Size Structure as an Indicator of Fish Diversity: A Study of 40 Lakes in Turkiye', Water, 15, 12, 2147

Selected research activities

Coordinator PONDERFUL project: Pond ecosystems for resilient future landscapes in a changing climate. EU Horizon 2020. 6.993.407€. 
 
PI TRANSPONDER project (UVic): Transnational biodiversity and ecosystem assessment approaches for pondscapes in Europe. Funded by: Biodiversa+ & Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. 1.726.748€. 
 
co-PI 'BTI Aiguamolls' project.
 
Coordinator postdoctoral grant Beatriu de Pinós. AGAUR.
 
Coordinator postdoctoral grant Investigo AGAUR.
 
Supervisor FI predoctoral grant. AGAUR.
 
Coordinator of two Investigo grants for technicians. AGAUR.
 
Invited talk at the EC Science for policy workshop on climate change and biodiversity.