Juan Carlos Castilla
NationalityChilean
Alma materUniversity of Wales
AwardsPremio México de Ciencia y Tecnología (2012)
BBVA International Prize in Ecology and Conservation[1]

Juan Carlos Castilla Zenobi (born in Chile, 1940) is a marine biologist. He received his PhD from the University of Wales. Since 1965, he has been a faculty member at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.[2] In 1985, he published a paper on a study which focused on a part of the Chilean coastline from which humans had been excluded.[3] He is a recipient of the 1996 TWAS Prize[4] and the 2011 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology.[5]

Education

Castilla was inspired by his marine biology professor, Patricio Sanchez, during his undergraduate years. He and several other students in the class were invited to join Sanchez in studying marine fauna at Chile's seashores.[3] This research helped grow Castilla's interest in marine biology which he pursued a Ph.D in at the University College of North Wales. His mentor at the university was Dennis Crisp, a famous marine biologist of the time.[3]

Early research and impact

One of Castilla's first research studies involved the Concholepas concholepas. He aimed to study the impact of human influences on the Concholepas population. Within two years of excluding humans from one area, the population of Concholepas increased.[6] Using the results from this study, Castilla wanted to apply his findings to a real life scenario. With the Chilean government, Castilla implemented "comanagement" sections of the seashore. Castilla collected 3 years of data and found success in areas that were comanaged compared to the all-access areas.[3] This led Castilla and other researchers to lobby the Chilean government into enforcing comanagement on a broader scale.

References

  1. "Juan Carlos Castilla and Jeremy B. C. Jackson". Archived from the original on 2019-07-12. Retrieved 2019-07-12.
  2. "Juan Carlos Castilla". ECIM. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Biography of Juan Carlos Castilla
  4. "Prizes and Awards". The World Academy of Sciences. 2016.
  5. Ramon Margalef Prize 2011
  6. Castilla, J. C.; Durán, L. R.; Duran, L. R. (December 1985). "Human Exclusion from the Rocky Intertidal Zone of Central Chile: The Effects on Concholepas Concholepas (Gastropoda)". Oikos. 45 (3): 391. doi:10.2307/3565575. JSTOR 3565575.


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