Miguel Ángel Bascur

Miguel Ángel Bascur is currently pursuing a PhD in Marine Sciences at the University of Barcelona, Spain. Under the guidance of Drs. Conxita Avila (Universitat de Barcelona), Stuart Jenkins (Bangor University), and David Barnes (British Antarctic Survey), he is investigating whether the documented melting and retreat of Antarctic glaciers, attributed to climate change in the Western Antarctic Peninsula, impact different ecological aspects of soft-bottom macrozoobenthic assemblages. Some of these aspects include structure and composition, trophic ecology, and blue carbon dynamics.

Miguel Ángel is from Hualpen, a small community in the city of Concepción, Chile. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Marine Biology (2015) and a Master's degree in Marine Ecology (2018) at the Universidad Catolica de la Santisima Concepcion (UCSC). During this academic journey, his primary focus was on understanding how environmental variability influences biochemical and reproductive adaptations in different species of marine invertebrates.

He has had the privilege of participating in two Antarctic expeditions so far. His first campaign (2018) was a part of the international collaborative project ICEBERGs between Chile and the United Kingdom, during which he collected samples for his master's thesis. Subsequently, his second Antarctic expedition (2023) was conducted as part of the CHALLENGE project led by the University of Barcelona, which provided additional samples to complement his doctoral research.

Miguel was one of two recipients of IAATO Antarctic Fellowship, awarded on November 9, 2023. Miguel will work with British Antarctic Survey to quantify the blue carbon (ocean-based organic carbon) sequestration in benthic invertebrates along Antarctic fjords with glacial retreating, ultimately seeking to identify how blue carbon can act as a natural regulatory factor against climate change.