Dominique PELLETIER

IFREMER

Research Director within the ‘Dynamics and Sustainability of Ecosystems: from Source to Ocean’ (DECOD) unit in Lorient.

Through her research, Dominique Pelletier has developed a socio-ecosystemic vision of the issues related to marine biodiversity conservation and the management of its uses (including fishing) in coastal areas. She has worked in Overseas Territories and mainland France, collaborating with a wide variety of academic and non-academic partners from different disciplines. Her research aims to address the needs of conservation and management (‘actionable research’).

 

She designed and developed the generic model ISIS-Fish, which describes the spatial and seasonal dynamics of complex fisheries. The tool facilitates the construction of models calibrated with field data to simulate and assess different scenarios (management, evolution). This tool, both powerful and educational, is now widely used. She has been involved in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) since 1999, considering both fishing and biodiversity conservation perspectives. She coordinated the first projects involving MPA managers, adopting a co-creation approach to science. In three projects conducted between 2003 and 2017, she defined and applied a transdisciplinary framework by fully integrating managers into the projects (Pelletier 2020). The results of the PAMPA project have influenced many current practices for monitoring and evaluation in MPAs (e.g., recreational use monitoring and indicator dashboards).

 

Continuing this work, she developed an original protocol for monitoring biodiversity using underwater video in 2007, which is now part of the Ocean Best Practices and has been adopted by several MPAs in France. It has enabled the collection of thousands of fish and habitat observations in several seas and oceans (Pelletier et al. 2021). To facilitate the dissemination of this protocol, she has been leading the KOSMOS project since 2020, a 100% Open Source and participatory protocol, in collaboration with the associative world, the educational sphere (primary, secondary, and higher education), and managers.

 

In parallel, she is actively involved in the sharing and harmonization of biodiversity data (according to FAIR principles) by participating in the National Biodiversity Data Hub, ODATIS (the Ocean Data Hub of Data Terra), and the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) of GEOBON.

 

The goal is to promote research practices that are low-cost and environmentally friendly, better involve society in the construction of knowledge, and maximize the impact of data and science, from local to international levels.

 

 

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