Post-doctoral Researcher

CEFE/CNRS

1919, route de Mende

34090 Montpellier

Bureau 210A 

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SHORT BIO

I completed my MSc from the National University of Costa Rica, in my home country, in 2013 with a focus on wildlife management and conservation. My thesis project concerned the population genetics of wild and released populations of the native scarlet macaw (Ara macao). Making use of non-invasive sample collection of feathers and feces, my thesis led to the first published study that assessed the genetic diversity and structure of scarlet macaw populations and was the first work to involve captive-bred and released individuals of this species in the wild. After finishing my MSc, I coordinated the Conservation Genetics Laboratory at the University of Costa Rica where I collaborated in projects involving populations genetics and disease ecology of birds, seaturtles, New World primates, and wild felids.

Later, in 2017, I enrolled in the PhD Program in Biology at the Vienna Doctoral School of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Vienna. My disseration, defended in January 2023, addressed the topic of the effects of climate and land-use change on avian communities in human-dominated landscapes. I modelled community-level taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity and quantified thermoregulation in selected species, according to varying degrees of agricultural intensification.

CURRENT PROJECT

Starting from August 2023, I am working in the Department of Evolutive and Behavioral Ecology alongside Anne Charmantier and Samuel Caro to understand mechanisms of physiological adaptation to hot urban environments in great tits (Parus major). If city-dwelling great tits adjust their heat tolerance in response to the urban heat island effect, they should display differences in water and energy expenditure, heat dissipation and body temperature when compared to great tits coming from forest environments. Making use of a common garden experiment, I aim to understand whether differences in thermoregulatory parameters between city and forest great tits have a genetic basis or if these birds show phenotypic plasticity in their thermal physiology traits.