Here you’ll find information about my academic projects. If you are interested in collaborating or discussing some ideas, feel free to e-mail me!

ECOS-s: A synthesis of Seed Ecology in Colombia (2024 - Ongoing)


“Frailejonal” (Espeletia-dominated vegetation) in the Parque Nacional Natural Chingaza (Cundinamarca, Colombia).


Seed ecology is a discipline of utmost importance for understanding the dynamics of plant populations and communities, as well as ecosystems and biomes. Therefore, is of vital interest for different practical applications, such as the design and implementation of biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration projects. ECOS-s aims to provide the first synthesis of seed ecology in Colombia through a systematic review and a quantitative assessment of biogeographical, phylogenetic and functional biases. Moreover, we aim to consolidate a database of seed and germination traits of the species studied to date. This project is co-lead by Diana C. Acosta-Rojas and me.


To germinate or not germinate: risk-reducing strategies meet seed germination traits (2023 - Ongoing)


Savannah landscape in the Parque Nacional Chapada dos Veadeiros (Goiás, Brazil).


Seed ecologists expect that there is a strong evolutionary pressure to ensure that germination occurs only under optimal conditions for seedling establishment and survival. Yet, different studies show that species fall into some of these big categories, according to their germination behaviour: risk-takers (i.e., those germinating in unpredictable environments, where optimal conditions may be ephemeral) and the risk-avoiders (i.e., those that restrict germination to more stable environments). In my PhD, I’ll delve into how different germination traits shape different risk-reducing strategies in tropical species, focusing on the species from the Brazilian Cerrado -the largest Neotropical savannah and the one with most species worldwide.


Rock n’ Seeds: an ecological synthesis of seed germination in rock outcrop vegetation (2020 - Ongoing)


Quartzitic outcrops at Serra do Cipó (Minas Gerais, Brazil).


As part of my Master’s Dissertation, I compiled a database of 16 seed functional traits from Brazilian rock oucrop vegetation -including ecosystems locally known as campo rupestre, canga, campo de altitude and inselbergs- that has been published as a data paper in Ecology. With this database, I’ve been working on a quantitative synthesis of seed ecology in these ecosystems, focusing on the phylogenetic structure of seed traits and germination responses to different abiotic factors. We have published a preprint and we are currently reviweing it after the second round of peer-review in Annals of Botany.

In the future, we plan to expand our database and quantitative synthesis to other rock outcrop vegetation worldwide.


MelastomaTraits: a trait database for the Melastomataceae family, a megadiverse tropical clade (2020 - 2024)


Meriania longifolia at the campus of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá D.C., Colombia).


The Melastomataceae family is among the ten largest botanical families in the world, and its widely recognized for its wide morphological and functional diversity. In this project, we compiled a database of plant traits from different organs, including leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds, based on data collected for various chapters of the recent publication Systematics, Evolution, and Ecology of Melastomataceae. The database has been accepted as a data paper in Ecology and it should be online soon.