Currently...
I am based at the University of Aberystwyth (Wales, UK) although I work for an Oxford University project entitled Environmental change in the Lower Omo valley, southwestern Ethiopia funded by the AHRC
This project aims to understand the landscape history of the Lower Omo valley (SW Ethiopia) within the perspective of the human action over the ecosystem and the potential feedbacks the system has towards the local communities.
My role in this project is to analyse the vegetation response to disturbance from a variety of disciplines; palaeoecology, remote sensing and human ecology.
My PhD...
It was focused in analyzing environmental changes affecting arid Namibia from the Late Pleistocene to the present.
The thesis was titled Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of the Namib desert eastern margin (Namibia). Palynology of hyrax middens. Specifically, our work was based in detecting vegetation fluctuations in the Nama-Karoo Biome as good sensor of climate changes. To accomplish such aim fossil pollen from biogenic deposits has been employed. This work has been supervised by Mercedes García Antón and José S. Carrión.
If you are interested in this issue you can read publications 3 and 6 (have a look into my papers).
Previous work
The Namibian work for my PhD was performed in the University of the Free State (Bloemfontein, South Africa) under the supervision of Prof. Louis Scott.
I am also developing my career as palynologist in a variety of environments in Mediterranean Iberia [papers 1, 2, 5 8 and 9].
Lately I have been collaborating in the project PaleoDiversitas , managed by José. S. Carrión, where I have developed a reference pollen database. Besides we are performing there an Information System with all the pollen, charcoal and botanical remain sites of the Iberian Peninsula. The time framework of this project embraces from the Pliocene to the present.
Presently I am interested in the vegetation response to human-climate forcing and the long-term resilience of threatened ecosystems.
Main research interests and areas of expertise
Palaeoecology of arid systems
Long-term biodiversity analyses
Palaeoclimate reconstruction from proxy records
Palaeoecology of disturbances and vegetation response
