The Spanish Institute of Game & Wildlife Research (IREC) is a multidisciplinary research centre that depends on the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC, read more here), the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM, read more here) and the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha (JCCM). IREC headquarters is located in Ciudad Real.
IREC was established with the mission to create and disseminate multidisciplinary scientific knowledge that allows maintaining a balance between game use and biodiversity conservation. Among the research groups at the IREC, the Wildlife Toxicology group (read more here) pursues the overall goal of studying the impact of chemical and biological contaminants on wildlife and explores different ways of assessing the environmental risk of those contaminants in order to facilitate an effective and sustainable wildlife management.
Manuel E. Ortiz-Santaliestra was and are currently involved in several national and EU research grants:
Researcher at UCLM
IREC profile
ResearchGate profile
Manuel's research focuses on the integration of the effects that environmental contaminants cause on terrestrial vertebrates at different levels of biological organization, with the purpose of translating mechanistic assessments of the impact of pollution on wildlife into apical and ecologically relevant responses.
He was member of the EFSA Working Group elaborating the Scientific Opinion on pesticide risk assessment for amphibians and reptiles (Full text here)
As part of the ALMass International Team, he am involved in the development of a Great Crested Newt (Triturus cristatus) model. This model was created in 2016 with funds from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency and a description of its structure and possible applications for pesticide risk assessment was included in the EFSA Scientific Opinion. This is so far the only model developed in ALMaSS for an amphibian species. The ways for using this kind of agent-based models as part of an eventual pesticide risk assessment scheme for amphibians, and also for reptiles, is one of the aspects currently under exploration within the PERIAMAR network.
