Université Laval
Ph.D. candidate
Supervisor: Monique Poulin
Stéphanie Pellerin
Start: 2020-08-31
End: 2024-06-30

Project

Advancements in spatial planning of ecosystem services restoration in agricultural landscapes
Planning of ecosystem restoration will likely require that a prioritization scheme is made, that is, to select which sites to restore first. That prioritization is ideally made under well-established and realistic criteria such as a fixed budget, site scale, restoration objectives and targets, stakeholders interests, etc. However, the temporal scale of ecosystem recovery is less addressed. The main objective of this work is to advance restoration planning by addressing recovery time lags in spatial prioritization. First, we propose to elaborate a conceptual framework to relate ecosystem services to their recovery time lags, the ecosystem type and restoration objectives and targets. Then, we will try to incorporate this knowledge into a case study: restoration of agricultural degraded and semi-degraded lands. We propose three (or four) possibilities or objectives for restoration of these ecosystems: restore them to a forest, a marsh, or a swamp (it could also be to recover the productive potential, we haven’t discussed much about this yet). We believe that these options span from rather simple restoration strategies (forest) to more complex, costly and long term recovery processes (swamps). Last, we will address the issue of the future demand for ES in the region, from a proactive management perspective: what are the benefits of investing in restoration of long term recovery ecosystems? Can early onset of restoration actions in long-term recovery ecosystems contribute to fulfill a future demand in anticipation, and also contribute to lower the future cost of conservation/restoration?

Publications

1- Moving towards public policy-ready science: philosophical insights on the social-ecological systems perspective for conservation science
Sala, Juan Emilio, Gabriela Torchio
2019 Ecosystems and People

2- COMPOSITE CELLULOSE FIBRE FOR AFFINITY CHROMATOGRAPHY APPLICATION
CARBAJAL, M. L., P. KIKOT, G. TORCHIO, M. FERNANDEZ LAHORE, M. GRASSELLI
2020 Cellulose Chemistry and Technology

3- Equilibrium Unfolding of the PDZ Domain of β2-Syntrophin
Torchio, Gabriela María, Mario Roberto Ermácora, Mauricio Pablo Sica
2012 Biophysical Journal