ECOPAR Comparative ecology of organisms, communities and ecosystems
Alicia GOMEZ-FERNANDEZ
- Published: 16 April 2024
Postdoc researcher
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Twitter: @AliciaGoFer
RESEARCH PROFILE
I am an ecologist interested in the diversity of adaptive strategies in plants. My work focuses on understanding the ecological and evolutionary processes that lead to phenotypic diversity at intra- and interspecific levels.
I am also interested in how plant phenotypic traits scale up to the community and ecosystem level. In recent years, I have mainly worked with crops and their wild progenitors, with the aim of improving agricultural sustainability and adaptation to global change.
Keywords: Ecological strategies, Crop evolution, Functional traits, Phylogenetics, Plant domestication, Molecular biology
PUBLICATIONS
Westgeest A. J., Vasseur F., Enquist B. J., Milla R., Gómez‐Fernández A., Pot D., Vile D. & Violle C. 2024. An allometry perspective on crops. New Phytologist. DOI: 10.1111/nph.20129
Milla R., Westgeest A. J., Maestre‐Villanueva J., Núñez‐Castillo S., Gómez‐Fernández A., Vasseur F., Violle C., Balarynová J. & Smykal P. 2024. Evolutionary pathways to lower biomass allocation to the seed coat in crops: insights from allometric scaling. New Phytologist, 243: 466–476. DOI: 10.1111/nph.19821
Gómez-Fernández A., Aranda I. & Milla R. 2023. Early human selection of crops' wild progenitors explains the acquisitive physiology of modern cultivars. Nature Plants, 10: 25–36. DOI: 10.1038/s41477-023-01588-6
Gómez-Fernández A. & Milla R. 2022. How seeds and growth dynamics influence plant size and yield: Integrating trait relationships into ontogeny. Journal of Ecology, 110: 2684–2700. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.13979
Gómez-Fernández A., Osborne C. P., Rees M., Palomino J., Ingala C., Gómez G. & Milla R. 2022. Disparities among crop species in the evolution of growth rates: the role of distinct origins and domestication histories. New Phytologist, 233: 995–1010. DOI: 10.1111/nph.17840
Goberna M., Montesinos-Navarro A., Valiente-Banuet A., Colin Y., Gómez-Fernández A., Donat S., Navarro-Cano J. & Verdú M. 2019. Incorporating phylogenetic metrics to microbial co-occurrence networks based on amplicon sequences to discern community assembly processes. Molecular Ecology Resources, 19: 1552–1564. DOI: 10.1111/1755-0998.13079
Matesanz S., García-Fernández A., Limón-Yelmo A., Gómez-Fernández A. & Escudero A. 2018. Comparative landscape genetics of gypsum soil specialists with natural island-like distributions reveal their resilience to anthropogenic fragmentation. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, 34: 1–9. DOI: 10.1016/j.ppees.2018.07.001
Gómez-Fernández A., Alcocer I. & Matesanz S. 2016. Does higher connectivity lead to higher genetic diversity? Effects of habitat fragmentation on genetic variation and population structure in a gypsophile. Conservation Genetics, 17: 631–641. DOI: 10.1007/s10592-016-0811-z
Matesanz S., Gómez-Fernández A., Alcocer I. & Escudero A. 2015. Fragment size does not matter when you are well connected: effects of fragmentation on fitness of coexisting gypsophiles. Plant Biology, 17: 1047–1056. DOI: 10.1111/nph.19821