Areas of Research:

Forest dynamics

Secondary forests comprise the majority of forest cover in many tropical and subtropical countries.  Many riparian forests have long histories of land-use, yet may be particularly resilient to disturbance via long distance seed dispersal and deposition of nutrient-rich sediments in alluvial environments.  In the Lower Amazon, we studied the effects of cattle disturbance and flood regime on the regeneration and succession of secondary várzea forests that had previously been jute plantations.

Seedling Ecology

Seedlings are a critical bottleneck for regeneration of tropical forests.  In my doctorate research, I conducted a common garden experiment with 10 woody species from várzea forests to understand how physical damage and the duration of annual floods affected seedling growth and survival over the course of a year.  Students from UFOPA (then UFPA) and FIT participated in studies on seed germination (Lucas et al. 2008, Aquatic Botany) and greenhouse experiments on the effects of damage on seedling growth and survival.

Dendrochronology

Dendrochronology - the science of tree-ring dating - can be an important tool for understanding temporal trends in forest productivity and its correlation with environmental variability in the past.  Using the common species, Scutia buxifolia (Rhamnaceae), commonly known as coronilla, we are studying growth patterns of trees in hillside (serrano) and riparian (ribereño) forest of Uruguay in collaboration with the Grupo de Biodiversidad y Ecología de la Conservación (BEC) de la Universidad de la República (UdelaR) de Uruguay.

Water quality

A major concern worldwide is the quality of rivers and streams for fish, wildlife and other aquatic resources.  We monitor physical and chemical water quality parameters in Littoral Uruguay to provide a baseline of information on the temporal dynamics of river ecosystems and specifically to understand the spatio-temporal change in habitat availability to key fish species for reproduction and growth.