Emily GALARZA

Biodiversity and Functional Ecology of Aquatic Macroinvertebrates in the High Andean Plateaus.

The aim of the thesis project is to study the biodiversity and ecology of aquatic macroinvertebrates in the surface water ecosystems of the Lake Titicaca basin. The objectives are related to the need to produce knowledge and solutions to preserve this diversity and the functionality of the systems, thus guaranteeing the sustainability of the uses and quality of the waters of the watershed and Lake Titicaca. The PhD will be developed along 3 main axes:

• knowledge of biodiversity: deepening of biodiversity inventories, in particular through barcoding techniques and the development of metabarcoding / environmental DNA tools
• development of tools for assessing the ecological status of environments using functional biological indicators. These indicators, developed through the comparative study of fauna collected on sites with different natural characteristics and different levels of degradation, can then be used to predict the impacts of a development or an activity, as well as to evaluate the flows to be maintained in a system to preserve a good ecological status (concept of ecological flow).
• proposals for alternative solutions (including ecological engineering) for the management of environments that can be presented to local populations