Ecology of Environmental Change - eChanges

Laura Concostrina Zubiri

External Collaborator

Functional ecology Community ecology Drylands Biocrusts Global change ecology Biocrusts-soil interaction

Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher – external collaborator – at the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (CE3C) - Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal) as part of the group Ecology of Environmental Change leaded by Dr. Cristina Branquinho. I am the researcher in charge of a FCT Transnational Cooperation Project and team member of several FCT projects related to climate change assessment and urban ecosystem services, and an Academy-Industry (FFCUL-EDP) project. Also, I have been the principal researcher of the Marie Curie Project “Functional diversity of Biocrusts: towards ecosystem services quantification in drylands” (http://echanges.fc.ul.pt/projetos/biocrusts.html) from 2014 to 2016.

My research interests are i) Community and Functional Ecology; to understand how communities and organisms’ functional traits respond to local and regional changes in biotic-abiotic conditions, disturbance-recovery processes and habitat structure, ii) Soil Ecology; to determine the role of biological soil crusts (soil cyanobacteria-lichen-bryophyte communities) on soil properties and functioning, and iii) Ecosystem Services; to evaluate the contribution of biological soil crust to Ecosystem Services in drylands.

In short, I have almost ten years of postgraduate research experience in Ecology, five of them as postdoctoral researcher. Since 2008, I have published 11 papers (9 as first author) in scientific peer-reviewed journals (Land Degradation and Development, J. of Vegetation Science, Ecological Applications, Soil Biology and Biochemistry, Biodiversity and Conservation, Ecosistemas), 1 proceedings paper and 1 book chapter. The percentage of publications in the first quartil is 77%, 4 of them in the first 5 percentile. I have 94 citations in Google Scholar (h=6). I reached >2000 reads since 2012 in ResearchGate (RG Score=19).

I have participated in 26 meetings and workshops at the national and international level (1 main talk, 3 invited talks). I have participated in 10 research projects (3 as principal investigator) devoted to functional diversity, desertification, global change, ecological fluxes and restoration. In 2014, I was awarded with a MSCA-IEF. I have organized and participated in several meeting sessions, workshops and courses in the Academy and the Academic-Society fields. I have supervised several projects of grade and post-graduate students.