People

Elena is a PhD student investigating the long-term impacts of marine biological invasions across various anthropogenised intertidal sites in Europe.

Her research utilises sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) extracted from dated sediment cores to detect introduction times and study the historical dynamics of invasive species. Her research aims to enhance our understanding of biological invasion processes over time, providing key insights into the stability, recovery, and fluctuations of invasive populations in response to environmental and ecological changes.

Elena completed her studies at the University of Barcelona and is currently based at the Centre for Advanced Studies of Blanes (CEAB-CSIC), Spain. As part of her PhD, she is undertaking a research stay at the Globe Institute, working within the SEACHANGE project. Here, she is conducting a study to detect specific species in sedaDNA samples from Iceland using droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) and comparing the results with metabarcoding data previously obtained in this project.