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Aconseguir prou per menjar, junt amb reproduir-se i sobreviure a les agressions, és un dels objectius principals que tenen tots els éssers vius. L'èspècie humana no n'és una excepció. [...]

El tema de l’any de la Secció de Ciències Biològiques de l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans per al 2022 és «Producció d’aliments i sostenibilitat». En aquest escrit es farà una aproximació al darrer mot del títol: sostenibilitat. De què parlem, o què volem dir, quan usem aquesta paraula? Avui es parla molt de sostenibilitat, és una paraula de moda. Apareix en tots els àmbits de la nostra societat, des de discursos polítics fins a anuncis comercials, però ens hem parat a pensar què és això de la sostenibilitat? Realment l’estemu sant amb propietat?

Functional oxides are materials with interesting properties for electronic applications. In this thesis, we investigate the growth of thin films of two types of oxides: mixtures of silicon oxide and germanium oxide, and mixtures of hafnium oxide and zirconium oxide. These mixtures can have varying amounts of their components, which we can use to change their properties. Silicon and germanium oxide can adopt the alpha-quartz structure, which is piezoelectric (that is, they can convert electrical stimuli to a mechanical response, and vice versa). This is an important property for communications components. To make devices that operate at higher frequencies (5G and beyond), we would like to make ever smaller quartz elements. To do this, we grow silicon and germanium oxide thin films in a non-crystalline, thus non-piezoelectric state. We can do this by alternating layers of pure silicon oxide with layers of pure germanium oxide using a chemistry-based method (Atomic Layer Deposition), or by growing a mix of the two using a physics-based method (Pulsed Laser Deposition). Then, we guide them into the correct crystalline form in a high temperature furnace. Hafnium and zirconium oxide are peculiar in that they can be ferroelectric (which has applications in memory storage) but only when they are grown in very thin films. We investigate their behavior when these films are grown by Pulsed Laser Deposition on silicon substrates (the most common substrate type in industry). In both cases, we investigate the results using various techniques, mainly based on X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy.

This paper provides an overview of the last 40 years of use, and in many cases abuse, of the natural resources in Catalonia, a country that is representative of European countries in general, and especially those in the Mediterranean region. It analyses the use of natural resources made by mining, agriculture, livestock, logging, fishing, nature tourism, and energy production and consumption. This use results in an ecological footprint, i.e., the productive land and sea surface required to generate the consumed resources and absorb the resulting waste, which is about seven times the amount available, a very high number but very similar to other European countries. This overexploitation of natural resources has a huge impact on land and its different forms of cover, air, and water. For the last 25 years, forests and urban areas have each gained almost 3% more of the territory at the expense of agricultural land; those municipalities bordering the sea have increased their number of inhabitants and activity, and although they only occupy 6.7% of the total surface area, they account for 43.3% of the population; air quality has stabilized since the turn of the century, and there has been some improvement in the state of aquatic ecosystems, but still only 36% are in good condition, while the remainder have suffered morphological changes and different forms of nonpoint source pollution; meanwhile the biodiversity of flora and fauna remains still under threat. Environmental policies do not go far enough so there is a need for revision of the legislation related to environmental impact and the protection of natural areas, flora, and fauna. The promotion of environmental research must be accompanied by environmental education to foster a society which is more knowledgeable, has more control and influence over the decisions that deeply affect it. Indeed, nature conservation goes hand in hand with other social and economic challenges that require a more sustainable vision. Toda

This paper provides an overview of the last 40 years of use, and in many cases abuse, of the natural resources in Catalonia, a country that is representative of European countries in general, and especially those in the Mediterranean region. It analyses the use of natural resources made by mining, agriculture, livestock, logging, fishing, nature tourism, and energy production and consumption. This use results in an ecological footprint, i.e., the productive land and sea surface required to generate the consumed resources and absorb the resulting waste, which is about seven times the amount available, a very high number but very similar to other European countries. This overexploitation of natural resources has a huge impact on land and its different forms of cover, air, and water. For the last 25 years, forests and urban areas have each gained almost 3% more of the territory at the expense of agricultural land; those municipalities bordering the sea have increased their number of inhabitants and activity, and although they only occupy 6.7% of the total surface area, they account for 43.3% of the population; air quality has stabilized since the turn of the century, and there has been some improvement in the state of aquatic ecosystems, but still only 36% are in good condition, while the remainder have suffered morphological changes and different forms of nonpoint source pollution; meanwhile the biodiversity of flora and fauna remains still under threat. Environmental policies do not go far enough so there is a need for revision of the legislation related to environmental impact and the protection of natural areas, flora, and fauna. The promotion of environmental research must be accompanied by environmental education to foster a society which is more knowledgeable, has more control and influence over the decisions that deeply affect it. Indeed, nature conservation goes hand in hand with other social and economic challenges that require a more sustainable vision. Toda

This document presents the Scientific Report Supporting the Management Plan for Boat Seine between August 2012 and December 2019, both inclusive and it was produced by the Catalan Institute for Ocean Governance Research (ICATMAR), which is a cooperation organism between the Directorate-General of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs (DGPAM) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food (DARP) of the Government of Catalonia and the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM) of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)

Parastichopus regalis is an epibenthic holothurian common in the Mediterranean Sea and the NE Atlantic, which feeds on the upper layer of the sediment playing a significant role on soft-bottom dynamics. Whether or not P. regalis is able to select the sediment ingested by size is the question of this study. For this purpose, a comparison between grain size distributions of the seabed sediments and the digestive contents of sea cucumbers were carried out. We performed the comparisons among sediment distributions through the median diameter and the granulometric dispersion D84/D16. The results showed that the size of the sediment within the holothurians was significantly smaller and more uniform than the ones in the seabed. Evidence showed that P. regalis select sediment by particle size during feeding, choosing the smaller particles. This finding reports novel information on the feeding behavior of this species, a fishery resource of local interest and importance in the Western Mediterranean region

Fisheries are one of the main economic sectors affected by marine litter, which can damage gear, reduce catch, and require time to repair or clean nets. This study aims to evaluate the type and density of marine litter in two shallow fishing grounds in the NW Mediterranean Sea, both belonging to the Natura 2000 network. Moreover, it quantifies the fraction of marine litter within the total catch to help understand the potential influence of marine litter on fisheries. Two study areas were selected, one in the vicinity of urban populated areas and high navigational traffic and one in a rural site off an agricultural area. The urban area had more benthic marine litter (393 to 198 kg km) including clinker (residue from coal-burning steamships), fabric, plastics, and processed wood and accounting for up to 38% of the total catch. The rural area had far less marine litter (34–56 kg km), accounting for only 5% of the total catch. Marine litter may have potential negative effects on fisheries; thus we propose that government credit trading programs could be promoted to help recover litter from fishing catches, to reduce fishing costs and hazards to marine ecosystems

Marine ecosystems evolve under many interconnected and area-specific pressures. To fulfil society's intensifying and diversifying needs while ensuring ecologically sustainable development, more effective marine spatial planning and broader-scope management of marine resources is necessary. Integrated ecological–economic fisheries models (IEEFMs) of marine systems are needed to evaluate impacts and sustainability of potential management actions and understand, and anticipate ecological, economic and social dynamics at a range of scales from local to national and regional. To make these models most effective, it is important to determine how model characteristics and methods of communicating results influence the model implementation, the nature of the advice that can be provided and the impact on decisions taken by managers. This article presents a global review and comparative evaluation of 35 IEEFMs applied to marine fisheries and marine ecosystem resources to identify the characteristics that determine their usefulness, effectiveness and implementation. The focus is on fully integrated models that allow for feedbacks between ecological and human processes although not all the models reviewed achieve that. Modellers must invest more time to make models user friendly and to participate in management fora where models and model results can be explained and discussed. Such involvement is beneficial to all parties, leading to improvement of mo-dels and more effective implementation of advice, but demands substantial resources which must be built into the governance process. It takes time to develop effective processes for using IEEFMs requiring a long-term commitment to integrating multidisciplinary modelling advice into management decision-making.

We use an original water-based chemical method to grow pure epitaxial BiFeO3 (BFO) ultra-thin films with excellent piezoelectric properties. Particularly, we show that this novel chemical route produces higher natural ferroelectric domain size distribution and coercive field compared to similar BFO films grown by physical methods. Moreover, we measured the d33 piezoelectric coefficient of 60 nm thick BFO films by a direct approach, using Direct Piezoelectric Force Microscopy (DPFM). As a result, first piezo-generated charge maps of a very thin BFO layer were obtained applying this novel technology. We also performed a comparative study of the d33 coefficients between standard PFM analysis and DPFM microscopy showing similar values i.e. 17 pm V−1 and 22 pC N−1, respectively. Finally, we proved that the directionality of the piezoelectric effect in BFO ferroelectric thin films is preserved at low thickness dimensions demonstrating the potential of chemical processes for the development of low cost functional ferroelectric and piezoelectric devices.

En aquesta exposició es presenta un programa de treball que no pretén ésser ni exclusiu i excloent. Hi ha temes generals, bàsicament buidatge i sistematització d’informació (punts 1 i 2) i temes específics, que toquen alguns punts concrets de la història de la pesca als Països Catalans que penso que han estat poc estudiats fins ara i que per la seva transcendència, segons el meu punt de vista, mereixen una atenció especial

Marine ecosystems evolve under many interconnected and area‐specific pressures. To fulfil society's intensifying and diversifying needs while ensuring ecologically sustainable development, more effective marine spatial planning and broader‐scope management of marine resources is necessary. Integrated ecological–economic fisheries models (IEEFMs) of marine systems are needed to evaluate impacts and sustainability of potential management actions and understand, and anticipate ecological, economic and social dynamics at a range of scales from local to national and regional. To make these models most effective, it is important to determine how model characteristics and methods of communicating results influence the model implementation, the nature of the advice that can be provided and the impact on decisions taken by managers. This article presents a global review and comparative evaluation of 35 IEEFMs applied to marine fisheries and marine ecosystem resources to identify the characteristics that determine their usefulness, effectiveness and implementation. The focus is on fully integrated models that allow for feedbacks between ecological and human processes although not all the models reviewed achieve that. Modellers must invest more time to make models user friendly and to participate in management fora where models and model results can be explained and discussed. Such involvement is beneficial to all parties, leading to improvement of mo‐dels and more effective implementation of advice, but demands substantial resources which must be built into the governance process. It takes time to develop effective processes for using IEEFMs requiring a long‐term commitment to integrating multidisciplinary modelling advice into management decision‐making

Undetected but underlying biases in model parameterization strongly reduce the reliability and value of assessments of data-poor fisheries. We explore the effects of missing and misunderstood data on single-species stock assessments used to provide management advice. From 2006 to 2014, the Colombian government monitored landings of small-scale fisheries. During the same period, communities implemented a participatory monitoring program in the Central Guajira region. We found that the two data sources gave different results for the population status of the highest-valued fish, lane snapper (Lutjanus synagris), and the largest-landed species, white grunt (Haemulon plumierii). Recordings of landing points by the government monitoring program led to year-to-year underestimations and therefore misconceptions regarding population status and fishery trends. Overexploited and underexploited population statuses were seen to arise from the same fishing pressure as a result of the interplay between natural mortality and erroneous estimates of fishing mortality. The tested von Bertalanffy growth parameters affected the exploitation level, but not the population status, of the species. When data from the participatory monitoring program were incorporated, higher landings and a more severe overfishing trend emerged for both species. The management scenarios simulated using the best verified data available provided reasonable advice for recovering the lane snapper and white grunt populations. Furthermore, simulation of management measures sustained the employment and incomes of fishers. Our findings indicate that participatory monitoring should be incorporated into the assessment and management of data-poor resources