Professor Sonia Rey Planellas

Professor

Institute of Aquaculture Pathfoot Building, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Professor Sonia Rey Planellas

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About me

Dr. Sonia Rey Planellas was appointed as a lecturer in 2019 at the Institute of Aquaculture and promoted to Associate Professor in 2022. She has been working in the field of animal behaviour, physiology and welfare of individuals and groups of animals for the past 20 years. Her main expertise is on fish behaviour and welfare but has also worked with other species like marine mammals and crustaceans. She is now Programme Director for the Marine Biology program. She is also the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion lead for the Institute of Aquaculture.

Dr Rey research interests are on the convergent evolution of animal cognition and sentience through a comparative approach between closely and distantly related species. She studies 1) How behaviours related to animal personalities have evolved within and between closely and distant related species 2) How emotions like pain, fear, anxiety, or happiness have evolved from invertebrates to the vertebrates and 3) How the understanding of animal behaviour and the interaction with the environment can help to improve the welfare of the species under different contexts: from animal production to conservation purposes.

To this end Dr Rey uses standard behavioural tests and molecular biology to understand the underlying causes of behaviour and phenotypic individual differences as well as the interaction with the environment by looking at the different neuro-molecular pathways and gene regulatory networks involved with those responses. She also uses monitoring systems like sensors and sonars, big data and AI as a tool to monitor the behaviour of the animals in their environment, mainly for applied purposes (Precision livestock farming) but also for conservation purposes (protection of endangered species). Dr Rey research has also contributed to the development of Operational Welfare Indicators for their the use on fish farming.

Dr Rey has been and is actually involved in multiple projects like the past COST action on fish welfare, Aquaexel research mission, AQUISOST (MEC-CENIT: Towards a sustainable aquaculture), AquaGenomics (MEC-consolider: development of biotechnological tools for aquaculture) and two different INIA projects (MEC) first one on stunning methods for seabream and the second on the characterisation of behavioural profiles (stress coping style) and their impact on reproductive success in Senegalese sole.

Also a EU COPEWELL project aimed to provide a better understanding of underpinning mechanisms in the physiology, biology, and behaviour of fishes and their relationship to individual coping styles, environment and development. The over-arching aim is to improve fish welfare status across the EU (aquaculture, research facilities, etc). She was also involved as a co-researcher in a DEFRA project on salmon fin damage and a SAIC project (Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Center) on vaccination protocols on salmon cleaning fish.

Her current position is associate professor in animal behaviour and welfare.

Recent projects: She is work package leader on the TNA AquaExcel EU project, Principal investigator on the Innovate UK project on Next-generation automated salmon feeding to increase productivity and improve sustainability and fish welfare, co-researcher in two OP projects on fish and crustaceans welfare.

She acted as a co-researcher in a EU project on eco-intensification of European aquaculture named GAIN where the main goal of the task she is involved is to understand how Precision Fish Farming (PFF) can improve the understanding of the fish behaviour and to improve the general health and welfare of the farmed fish in different farming systems.

She is also a principal investigator in a BBSRC-ARCH UK project on off-shore aquaculture in salmon farming focused in how exposed environments will impact the fish welfare. Dr. Rey is now the TNA coordinator and WP1 leader for the EU HORIZON2020 funded project AquaExcel3.0.

She has supervised multiple undergraduate and master projects as well as several PhD students. She is supervising 5 PhD students under different projects studying behaviour and welfare.

If you are interested in working with us just send us a message, we accept PhD students.

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