Ghoufrane Derhy

Affiliation:

Essaouira School of Technology, Morocco
6 Dec 2021 to 28 Feb 2022

Research subject:

environmental variability off Moroccan coast

Supervisor:

Dr Maria Carmen García-Martinez

Short cv:

Ghoufrane is a Moroccan PhD student in Environmental sciences. She is interested to study the oceanographic support to small pelagic dynamics, in order to explore the relationship between the population dynamics and the environment. Her researches are focused on several issues related to the marine ecosystem.

Among the studies that she has carried out, the assessment of different small pelagic (mainly sardine, anchovy and chub mackerel) based on stock assessment models, such as surplus production models and also the length or age-based models in the Moroccan Atlantic coast, different ICES areas, Mediterranean Sea, Madeira Island and Canary Islands. So, the life history parameters, the biomass, the diet composition and the catches by length and age data are necessary to assess the stock of each species and which are resulting from the exploratory surveys carried out by different vessels. Her work is interested also in the analysis of primary production abundance mainly concerning the phytoplankton through studying the trophic interactions between the different functional groups from the primary producers to the consumers as well as the detritus in a study case that is the Moroccan Atlantic coast. She has also explored the relationship that may exist between different environmental covariates (physical and biogeochemical conditions) and the dynamics of chub mackerel population in the center and south of Moroccan Atlantic coast in order to develop the stock assessment model through the implementation of a mathematical relationship between the stock abundance and environmental covariates that can be included in the model (an upcoming step). Where a list of environmental factors measures was used concerning the bottom salinity, 3D temperature, 3D salinity, 3D velocity, Chlorophyll concentration, Net Primary Production, Oxygen, Nitrate, Phosphate, etc. Different types of environmental data have been collected and used, so she needs to see and assist the methodologies used to measure these physical and biogeochemical parameters that control the dynamic of small pelagic species.