About me
I am interested in understanding how tropical forests maintain their extraordinary biodiversity, with a focus on plant ecology, plant–animal interactions, and regeneration dynamics. My research looks closely at the early life stages of trees, especially seedlings, as a way to uncover the processes that shape community assembly. I combine long-term monitoring, experiments, and functional trait data, considering both above and belowground traits, to reveal how demographic trade-offs and plant interactions influence survival and coexistence. More recently, I am focusing also on AI approaches that combine imagery, hyperspectral reflectance, and species descriptions to accelerate seedling identification and scale trait–demography frameworks for forest restoration.
Research
Dispersal and Seed rain-Successional Feedbacks
I study how seed dispersal changes across forest succession and how those changes shape regeneration. By linking seed rain to forest age, landscape context, and the availability of dispersers, I ask whether regenerating forests receive the diversity of seeds needed to recover tree communities and ecosystem function over time.
Conspecific density dependence and species interactions
My research examines how interactions among seedlings, neighbors, pathogens, herbivores, and vertebrate consumers influence survival and community assembly. I am especially interested in conspecific density dependence and in how biotic interactions help maintain diversity by preventing any one species from becoming overly dominant.
Functional traits and demographic trade-offs
I use functional traits to understand why some species perform better than others under different environmental conditions. By comparing aboveground, belowground, and allocation-based traits, I explore the demographic trade-offs that underlie seedling growth, survival, and coexistence in tropical successional forests.
Emerging approaches: AI, seedling ID and forest function
More recently, I have been developing AI-based approaches to improve seedling identification and expand the scale of forest monitoring. By combining imagery, hyperspectral reflectance, and species descriptions, I aim to build tools that accelerate biodiversity assessments and connect trait-based ecology with forest restoration and ecosystem function.