Wednesday, 13 November 2019

III PopCOMics General Assembly


by Xavier Turon
On November the 12th, 2019, we held in Barcelona the third General Assembly of the PopCOmics project. 16 people attended the meeting, comprising most of the research teams at the University of Barcelona and at the Centre for Advanced Studies at Blanes.
Marta Pascual and Xavier Turon gave an overview of the mid-term report that was presented to the Spanish Ministry in September. In short, all tasks are already ongoing, some already finished, and some still in the first phases. Several new species have been added to the initial workplan.
We were lucky in having already 21 papers with the direct results of the project (and 18 more with related side results related), 3 invited keynotes, 58 meeting presentations, 2 doctoral theses already deposited, 3 Master Theses, and 3 Degree Theses presented. All this speaks of excellent achievements at this stage of the project.
We then had interesting presentations and discussions about the ongoing research. Francesc Mestres gave a talk about the results of five years of genetic monitoring of populations of Liocarcinus depurator in the Atlanto-Mediterranean transition. Oriol Sacristan introduced us to his studies on Cliona sponge symbionts in his Marie Curie SCOOBA project. The doctoral students of the project, Marta Turon, Adrià Antich, Anna Barbanti, Hector Torrado, and Carles Galià updated us on their research. Finally, Núria Marco presented results of her Master Thesis on Didemnum vexillum symbionts.
We concluded with an open round of discussion in which aspects of the dissemination activities and plans for future research projects were commented. We ended up chatting over beer and lunch at the University’s cafeteria.
It was an enjoyable and profitable day and we hope to repeat it next year.