The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Belonging to the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Secretary of State for Research, Development and Innovation, its main objective is to develop and promote research that will help bring about scientific and technological progress.
It has a staff of more than 13,000 employees, among these about 3,300 are permanent researchers and about 4,300 are pre- and post-doctoral researchers. It has 71 institutes or centres distributed throughout Spain. In addition, it has 54 Joint Research Units with universities or other research institutions.
CSIC provides services to the entire scientific community through management of the Singular Scientific and Technological Infrastructures (ICTS) such as Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory, Doñana Biological Station, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Hesperides Ocean Research Vessel, Integrated Micro and Nanoelectronics Clean Room, Juan Carlos I Antarctic Base, Max Von Laue-Paul Langevin Institute and Sarmiento de Gamboa Ocean Research Vessel.
Doñana Biological Station (EBD) is the institute that will take care of CSIC participation in ECOPOTENTIAL. Belongs to the area of Natural Resources. Its fundamental mission is to carry out multidisciplinary research of the highest standard directed to understanding, from an evolutionary viewpoint, the way in which biodiversity is generated, maintained and how it deteriorates, as well as the consequences of its loss and the possibilities of its conservation and restoration.
Principal Investigator:
Javier Bustamante is currently working in spatial ecology. He was a field ornithologists that has gradually moved more into mathematical models of species distributions, statistical analysis, geographical information systems and remote sensing. He started working in behavioural ecology of birds of prey (Parent-offspring conflict in kites, ospreys and kestrels was the subjects of his PhD thesis work), did some research in penguin reproductive ecology –Chinstrap penguins– in Antarctica, and then moved into species distribution modelling (SDM), also in Spain and South America. He now works with Lesser kestrels (Falco naumanni) in a long term research project, building an automatic monitoring system for a breeding colony in Andalusia using GPS-dataloggers, accelerometers and smart nest-boxes. He is interested in different aspects, but specially in building tools that can be used in species conservation, management, and conservation planning at different spatial scales. In remote sensing, he is particularly interested in the use of satellite images for time series analysis, to be able to reconstruct how natural systems work at large spatial scales. He currently works also on historical reconstruction of the flood dynamics of Doñana wetlands.
Within Ecopotential he is the coordinator of CSIC-EBD participation in WP 4, 5, 6 and 11, contributing with in-situ historic data and satellite data time-series of the Doñana protected area and incorporating remote sensing and in-situ data to models of waterbird population dynamics in wetlands.