Miguel Delibes-Mateos

RESEARCH CAREER SUMMARY

 

I started my research career in 2002, when I joined the Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC-CSIC-UCLM-JCCM) after obtaining a grant from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) to undertake my PhD Thesis under the supervision of Dr. Rafael Villafuerte and Dr. Pablo Ferreras. At IREC, I received a broad training in ecology and management of wildlife through my participation in different projects on these topics. In particular, I devoted most of my time to work in a project funded by the Spanish National Research Program about factors (habitat suitability and changes, predation, diseases, etc.) explaining European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) population trends in the Iberian Peninsula, which was the basis of my PhD Thesis. In addition, I received complementary training in the analyses of landscape changes during a stay in the University of Buenos Aires. My PhD Thesis was defended in December 2006. 

 

To improve my academic training on the topics I studied during my PhD Thesis but at larger spatial and temporal scales, I successfully applied for a postdoctoral grant from the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha to work in the research group of biogeography, diversity and conservation of the University of Málaga under the supervision of Dr Mario Vargas. During this time, I acquired expertise in assessing long-term changes in landscape and their long-term effects on wildlife. This, together with the knowledge on game species I acquired during my PhD period, helped us to open a new research line about the effects of habitat changes on game species’ trends. This line is still running, and has been highly productive. At the end of this period, I was especially interested in conservation conflicts involving wildlife, and to improve my knowledge on this issue I obtained funds for a 3-month stay at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences under the supervision of Dr Jon Swenson. I cooperated with him and other international colleagues in the study of conflicts associated with species that play simultaneously multiple roles (e.g. keystone species and pest species). 

 

When my postdoctoral grant finished, I obtained a post-doctoral contract offered by Dr Beatriz Arroyo at IREC to work in the EU 7th framework project entitled HUNTing for sustainability. A few months after starting that contract, I obtained the prestigious Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellowship (Jdc), funded by the Spanish government, to work in this project. The overall goal of the project was to assess the social, cultural, economic and ecological functions and impacts of hunting across a broad range of contexts in Europe and Africa. I actively participated in the work-packages related to the cultural meaning of hunting, socioeconomic of hunting, biodiversity and hunting, and integration of results. Within the HUNT project, I attended several meetings and workshops in 5 different countries, including capacity-training workshops on social sciences organized by the partners from Umea University (Sweden) in Tanzania and Norway, or a training workshop on Management Strategy Evaluation methods organized by the Imperial College (UK) in Paris. Through the project, I could collaborate with international researchers from multiple disciplines (social scientists, economic researchers, etc). 

 

After that I got a competitive JAE-doc postdoctoral fellowship, funded by CSIC. My main goal in that project was to develop a sustainable model of red-legged partridge harvesting through the integration of ecological data and information of decision making by game managers. This project is currently running with the collaboration of Dr. Nils Bunnefeld. During this period, I also led an international short project (1 year) on the survey of mammals through camera-trapping, searching of mammals’ faeces and tracks, and interviews with local people in a remote area of Chile. 

 

After that, I competitively got a Talentia-postdoc project, funded by Consejería de Ecomomía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo of Junta de Andalucía and the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement 267226 (Marie Curie Actions). This project stated in October 2014, when I joined CIBIO-University of Porto, and continued at the Institute for Advanced Social Studies (IESA-CSIC). In this period, I aimed to investigate in depth the conflict associated with the management of European rabbits in the Iberian Peninsula (see ongoing projects). 

​

Recently, I got a competitive postdoctoral fellowship, funded by Plan Propio de Investigación of the University of Sevilla. I have joined the Department of Vegetal Biology and Ecology of the Faculty of Biology. During the next four years, I will continue researching conflicts associated with the management and conservation of ecosystems in addition to becoming involved in teaching activities at the department.