University of Castilla–La Mancha (UCLM)
The University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) is a public university founded in 1982 that maintains four campuses across Castilla-La Mancha region, with more than 26,000 students currently enrolled in one of its >120 BSc, MSc or PhD programmes. Through its 280 research groups, UCLM staff coordinates projects within the frame of the most important national and EU programmes like ERC or MSCA.
Role in the project
The UCLM role in SYBERAC will be implemented by the Wildlife Toxicology group of the Institute for Game and Wildlife Research (IREC). The team coordinates WP2, which consists of six case studies that contemplate different scenarios of exposure, biodiversity elements and hazards. Those cases studies, four of which will count on the direct action of the UCLM team, will serve to generate the information necessary to develop tools for application in the development of a system-based risk assessment scheme. For that reason, UCLM will also be engaged in WP4 (risk Assessment) of SYBERAC.
People involved
Manuel Ortiz-Santaliestra
PhD in Biology, is an associate professor at UCLM since 2022. He investigates on the effects of environmental pollution on wildlife from an integrative perspective, from molecular mechanistic processes to population-level impacts. He chairs a COST Action on pesticide risk assessment for herpetofauna and coordinates several EU-funded projects. He has published 60 SCI-indexed papers (h index 24).
Ana Marques
BSc in Biology and MSc in Applied Ecology. She is a graduate student at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, where she is conducting her PhD at the Wildlife Toxicology Research Group of the Institute for Game and Wildlife Research (IREC – CSIC, UCLM, JCCM).
Araceli Gort
PhD in Ecology, she is a postdoctoral researcher at the IREC (UCLM-CSIC-JCCM) Wildlife Toxicology group. She has been an associate professor at UAB from 2018 to 2024. Her lines of research include movement, ethology and feeding studies in herbivores, and demographic and spatial analysis. Her postdoctoral research will be focused on environmental risk assessment and ecological modelling.
Marta Herrero Villar
PhD in Agricultural and Environmental Science, she is a postdoctoral researcher at UCLM in the Wildlife Toxicology group with a veterinary background. Her main research (since 2018) has been focused on the evaluation of the impacts of veterinary pharmaceuticals in avian scavengers and the development of environmental risk assessment of these chemicals. Currently, her research lines include ecotoxicology, analytical chemistry, and environmental risk assessment of diverse toxic chemicals in wildlife.
Rafael Mateo
PhD in Veterinary Medicine, is an associate professor at UCLM since 2003 and responsible for the IREC’s Wildlife Toxicology group. His lines of research include the study of the effect of toxic substances of diverse origin on wildlife and the implications this may have on Public Health. He has published >230 SCI-indexed papers (h index 43) and supervised 11 PhD theses.
Claudia Santamaría
Biologist with a master in biodiversity and conservation biology. Currently, she is developing her PhD on the effects of triazole fungicides on farmland birds. Her research involves both experimental and field studies to understand the impact of these chemicals on avian populations.
Paula Bolívar
PhD student in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Her research focuses on the interactions between wildlife and agriculture. The topics she is working on as part of her PhD thesis are ecotoxicology, pesticides and wildlife in farm ecosystems.