Walter
Zupa
Researcher
Research interests:
His interests concern spatio-temporal modelling (GLM, GAM, MaxEnt, Random Forest, HMSC, etc.) of species distributions and biodiversity, to quantify trends and patterns of the impacts of environmental and anthropogenic drivers. He develops and applies risk-assessment methods for benthic and demersal communities to support spatial management. He conducts experimental work in aquaculture and in the wild on fish physiology and welfare, using calibrated accelerometer tags. He studies migrations and behaviour of vulnerable species and translates this knowledge into bycatch mitigation.
Articles:
Titolo | Anno | Rivista |
|---|---|---|
FISHGLOB: A collaborative infrastructure to bridge the gap between scientific monitoring and marine biodiversity conservation | 2025 | Conservation Science and Practice |
Relative Benthic Status guides sustainable trawl management in the Adriatic-Ionian Seas | 2025 | ICES Journal of Marine Science |
Anticipating how spatial fishing restrictions in EU waters perform to protect marine species, habitats, and dependent fisheries | 2025 | Frontiers in Marine Science |
Marine communities do not follow the paradigm of increasing similarity through time | 2025 | PLOS Climate |
Climate change, stock productivity and demersal fisheries management: a central Mediterranean case study | 2025 | Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences |
Biography:
Walter Zupa, part of COISPA team since 2009, is a fisheries biologist (PhD, Marine Sciences) with an extensive experience in marine biology, fisheries and aquaculture. He is a proficient R programmer. He analyses trawl‑survey and commercial‑catch data with GLM, GAM, machine learning (Maxent) and Bayesian multispecies (HMSC) models, generating species and fisheries distribution maps. He is an advanced GIS operator, using both R and QGIS software for spatial analysis. Active in the EU Data Collection Framework since 2005, he created the R packages RoME, RoMEBS and RDBqc for automated survey and commercial‑data quality control and validation, supported by automatic reporting facilities (RMarkdown), and BioIndex for spatio‑temporal analysis of survey data. Since 2017 he has contributed to GFCM (BlackSea4Fish) and ICES expert groups, especially WGFBIT, for the assessment of benthic state, and WKFISHDISH2, aimed at defining species‑distribution mapping best practice. He has also participated to several European projects (e.g. SEAwise, B-USEFUL).
He has conducted several experiments testing the effects of different rearing protocols (e.g. open-flow systems, RAS) and feeding regimes on growth performance, metabolic profile, and welfare conditions of various species (e.g. sea bass, gilthead sea bream, rainbow trout). He is skilled in surgical procedures for tagging and implanting sensors in fish, as well as in the use of swim tunnels, respirometry chambers, and wireless telemetry systems.