Establishing a governance threshold in small-scale fisheries to achieve sustainability

The lack of effective governance is a major concern in small-scale fisheries. The implementation of governance that encompasses the three pillars of sustainability (social, economic, and ecological) is still a worldwide challenge. We examined nine stalked barnacle fisheries (Pollicipes pollicipes) across Southwest Europe to better understand the relationship between governance elements and sustainability. Our results show that nested spatial scales of management, the access structure, co- management, and fisher’s participation in monitoring and surveillance promote sustainability. However, it is not the mere presence of these elements but their level of implementation that drives sustainability. Efforts should be placed in the accomplishment of a minimum combination of local scales of management, access rights through individual quotas, instructive-consultative co- management and functional participation. Surpassing this threshold in future governance structures will start to adequately promote social, economic and ecologically sustainability in small-scale fisheries

A large‑scale comparison of reproduction and recruitment of the stalked barnacle Pollicipes pollicipes across Europe

Understanding large-scale spatial and temporal patterns of marine populations is a central goal in ecology, which has received renewed attention under climate change. However, few studies explore the large-scale dynamics of populations using standardized protocols and during the same time frames. We studied the phenology and intensity of reproduction and recruitment for the intertidal stalked barnacle Pollicipes pollicipes over an European scale and described their potential linkages with environmental variables. This species supports profitable fisheries in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). In Brittany (France), we had observed a significant lower reproductive effort (long non-breeding season, short breeding period in summer) and low values of recruitment intensity. This pattern may be related to the fact that Brittany corresponds to the northern limit of the distribution of this species in continental Europe. On the Iberian Peninsula, the most different region was Galicia (Spain), with Asturias (Spain) and SW Portugal being more similar. In Galicia, we have observed a contradictory pattern characterized by the absence of a non-breeding period and by a shorter recruitment season than observed in other Iberian regions. Our results suggest that air temperature, SST and chlorophyll-a might be related to the variability in reproduction and recruitment patterns of P. pollicipes. Moreover, spring and early summer upwelling in SW Portugal and Galicia might be inhibiting recruitment in this period. At the northern limit, the expected increase in performance under climate change might facilitate the recovery of populations after exploitation, increasing the resilience of the resource to fishing pressure

Bioplástico con resina epoxi

El objetivo principal de este proyecto consiste en obtener un material resistente y ligero, que a su vez disponga de buenas propiedades mecánicas para su correcto funcionamiento, con la intención de ser utilizado para la fabricación de elementos de seguridad (cascos, escudos) y piezas de automóviles. Para su fabricación se ha utilizado un bioplástico casero a base de materiales sencillos, el cual se ha recubierto con resina de epoxi. Tras la obtención del material, se han realizado distintas pruebas para analizar sus propiedades (ensayo de tracción, térmico, prueba de impermeabilidad…). Una vez analizados los datos de las diferentes pruebas, se llegó a la conclusión de que el material cumple las expectativas iniciales

Biophysical modelling of larval dispersal and population connectivity of a stalked barnacle: implications for fishery governance

Numerical biophysical models are a standard methodology used to provide estimates of larval dispersal and population connectivity for marine species with a bi-phasic life cycle. How- ever, confidence on biophysical models, tested by confronting model estimates with empirical evi- dence, is seldomly assessed. We compared time-series estimates of larval supply of the stalked barnacle Pollicipes pollicipes to rocky shores in 3 regions around the Iberian Peninsula (Asturias, Galicia, SW Portugal) with recruitment observations made at monthly intervals for 2 yr. Supply estimates were made with the Regional Ocean Modelling system using several larval behaviour scenarios, while the number of recruits on the stalks of adult barnacles was used as a measure of recruitment intensity. Cross-correlation analysis showed that passive, surface-dwelling and onto- genetically migrating larval scenarios generally produced significant positive correlations at time lags of 0 to +2 mo at the regional level but not at sub-regional or site levels. None of the scenarios produced a substantially better fit than the others, and all 3 produced estimates of average real- ized dispersal (–73 to +63 km in the S/W and N/E directions) and larval retention (2.0 to 2.4%) that were numerically very similar. These estimates indicate high levels of connectivity, either during larval life or via steppingstone processes, within and between the 3 regions. Based on these estimates, we advocate that the management of the P. pollicipes fishery requires an interactive, polycentric governance system at transregional, regional and local scales, which will give the resource a higher possibility of persistence by diversifying the fishery’s management portfolio

Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Effectiveness after 12 Years in Madrid (Spain)

A fully government-funded human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program started in 2007 in Spain (only 11–14-year-old girls). The first of those vaccinated cohorts, with the quadrivalent vaccine (Gardasil), turned 25 years old in 2018, the age at which cervical cancer screening begins in Spain. The current study could provide the first evidence about the effectiveness of the quadrivalent vaccine against HPV in Spain and the influence of age of vaccination. The present ambispective cohort study, which was conducted on 790 women aged 25 and 26 years old, compares the rate of HPV prevalence and cytologic anomaly according to the vaccination status. The overall infection rate was 40.09% (vaccinated group) vs. 40.6% (non-vaccinated group). There was a significant reduction in the prevalence of HPV 6 (0% vs. 1.3%) and 16 (2.4% vs. 6.1%), and in the prevalence of cytological abnormalities linked to HPV16: Atypical Squamous Cells of Undetermined Significance (ASCUS) (2.04% vs. 14%), Low-grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesions (LSIL) (2.94% vs. 18.7%) and High-grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion (HSIL) (0% vs. 40%), in the vaccinated group vs. the non-vaccinated group. Only one case of HPV11 and two cases of HPV18 were detected. The vaccine effectively reduces the prevalence of vaccine genotypes and cytological anomalies linked to these genotypes