PEOPLE
PEOPLE IN THE LAB
Postdoc researchers
Pablo Medrano
Pablo Medrano is a postdoc researcher from Ecuador that obtained his PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of Reading. He is interested in landscape ecology, road ecology, conservation biology and macroecology. Pablo is currently working at IREC-CSIC in the ELECTROSTEPPE project, mapping hotspots of taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of steppe birds, and addressing potential conflicts with renewable energy development projects. Further, he will apply ecological niche models to understand how the current and future distribution of key steppe bird species may be altered by the development of photovoltaic and wind energy projects in Spain.
PhD students
Iago Ferreiro Arias
Iago Ferreiro is an ecologist with broad interests in biodiversity conservation and global change biology. Currently he is a PhD student at the Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC) under the supervision of Eloy Revilla and myself. He is studying overhunting impacts across tropical forests by exploring connections between ecological networks, functional diversity and carbon storage along defaunation gradients. In his thesis he is using macroecological models of hunting impacts and detailed camera trap data to study defaunation across the tropics and how this may alter functional diversity and the structure of plant-frugivore ecological networks. He is also interested in mapping and identifying biodiversity-carbon co-benefits. He is working in the DEFNETCARBON and TROPECOLNET projects, and conducts fieldwork in the Medio Juruá region, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, in partnership with the Instituto Juruá, UEA and NMBU.
Carlos Merino Luna
Carlos Merino is a PhD student at the Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC-CSIC) studying the ecology and conservation of the pin-tailed sandgrouse. He is focusing on changes in habitat suitability in Doñana National Park based on historical and present occurrence data, the movement strategies of sandgrouse under dynamic environmental conditions (flooding and changes in resource availability), and the genetic connectivity with other populations. He is involved in the GANGAMOVE project and supervised by François Mougeot and myself. While he is affiliated with IREC-CSIC, he will be working during extended periods at EBD-CSIC, and will spend some time doing fieldwork at Doñana NP.
Visiting researchers
Davide Mirante
He is a PhD student at the Sapienza University of Rome studying the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on diel rhythms, home-range use, acoustic activity, and physiological response of wildlife. He is working at me at the MNCN-CSIC on a meta-analysis on the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on glucocorticoid concentrations of mammals, birds and herps. More on Davide here.
MSc students
Contact me for potential MSc projects.
Undergraduate students
David Arbiza
David Arbiza is a BSc. Biology student at the UAM. He is doing a one-month stay at MNCN-CSIC in my group to assist on the compilation of data on functional traits of tropical plants using literature sources, images, and image processing software. His work will help addressing several research questions within the DEFTROP, DEFNETCARBON and TROPECOLNET projects.
Past members
Melinda de Jonge
Melinda de Jonge is a PhD student at Radboud University (RU, the Netherlands). Her research focuses on disentangling the biotic and abiotic drivers of species distributions and modelling the impacts of anthropogenic activities on biodiversity. Her main interests are how interactions between species affect macroecological patterns of biodiversity and the responses of species to changes in the environment. She defended her PhD dissertation “Advances in large-scale multi-species impact assessments” in October 2023.
Laura Paltrinieri
Laura Paltrinieri was a STSM researcher from the COST Action CLIMBATS. She was in the lab between Feb-March 23, and April-June 23 studying morphological responses of European bats to climate (temperature and precipitation) using spatial data and long-term monitoring data.
COLLABORATIONS
All my work has benefited enormously by connecting and discussing research ideas with other academic peers. I have collaborated with an incredible network of > 200 researchers from > 140 institutions located in 44 countries, with my main collaborators located in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, UK and Germany. I believe that in order to address the enormous challenges ahead in a global change context, collaborative research and team efforts among several labs are pivotal to tackle big questions in ecology and biodiversity research. Some examples of collaborative projects where I participate are:
1) the European COST action CLIMBATS, where 48 researchers from 15 European countries are working alongside to assess the vulnerability of European bats to climate change;
2) the sRedList project, which brings together Red List practitioners and ecological modellers to develop an innovative, rapid and consistent framework for prioritizing IUCN RL assessments.
Location of researchers and institutions with whom I have collaborated. Point size of each researcher is proportional to the number of articles published in collaboration.