My work focuses on spatio-temporal effects of climate change on agriculture, identifying risks and options for adaptation and mitigation. This is an exciting area in which I work together with Dr. González – Andújar in IAS – CSIC (Spain) and Dr. Lima in CAPES – PUC (Chile).
My work is motivated by questions such as:
- Crop yield depends on the endogenous growth capacity of plants and on the environmental conditions constraining it; then, how do both factors interact in shaping crop yield fluctuations?
- Which crops (cereals, oilseeds, fruit trees, olive and vineyards) and which regions are the most vulnerable to the actual climate changes trends?
- What are the constraints to regional crop yields? Identify yield gap profiles based on spatio-temporal models.
- As water supply and crop demand in agro-systems may be affected by global climate change, how and where the irrigation practices are effective to mitigate the effects of climate change?
- It is suggested the role of agrobiodiversity to decrease impacts of agriculture or to make it more productive, stable, or sustainable, but are there any benefits of high species richness or diversity of non-agroecosystems (weed community) to agriculture productivity?
I studied biology (B.S.), statistics (M.S.c) and agriculture (PhD) to construct both mathematical and theoretical ecology (based on population dynamic models) to link models with ecological processes. In particular, I study the regions of Southern South America (one of the most productive regions of the world) and Mediterranean climate regions such as Spain (one of the most prominent “Hot-Spots” in future climate change projections).