Recently I published a paper assessing the extent to which fragment connectivity and area explain patterns in interaction structure among four herbivore insect guilds and their host plants. We studied natural communities in habitat fragments surrounded by vineyards in Valle…
Blog Archives
Exotic plants and pollination niche overlap in an agroecosystem
Post contributed by Hugo Marrero A paper on the influence of exotic plants on the pollination niche overlap among plants in an agroecosystem was just published in Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. The study, which is part of my PhD thesis,…
Flower diversity and the reproduction of solitary bees
Post contributed by Jimena Dorado A paper evaluating whether diverse flower communities favor pollinator reproduction just came out in PeerJ. This paper came out from my PhD thesis, in which I was mentored by Diego Vázquez. We had previously found that diverse…
Grazing and the demography of a desert tree
Post contributed by Valeria Aschero I have recently published a paper in Forest Ecology & Management aimed at studying how ungulates influence plant demography and population growth in different consecutive phases of their life cycle. For my PhD thesis (defended in 2011) I wanted to…
Abundance and generalization in mutualistic networks: a chicken-and-egg dilemma
A paper evaluating the causal relationship between abundance and generalization in plant-animal mutualistic networks was published online today in Ecology Letters. This research was done in collaboration with Hugo Fort, a physicist in Uruguay, and Boon Leong Lan, a physicist in…
Review on ecological and evolutionary impacts of chaning climatic variablity
A paper reviewing the ecological and evolutionary impacts of chaning climatic variability was published today in Biological Reviews. The idea for this paper started as informal chats with Ernesto Gianoli and Pancho Bozinovic during a course we taught in 2012…
(Lack of) defensive role of ants throughout a broad latitudinal and elevational range of a cactus
Many plant species offer feeding resources (usually nectar) or nesting sites for ants, which in turn defend plants from herbivore attacks. With Marina Alma (former lab member), Rodrigo Pol (colleague at IADIZA) and Luis (Lucho) Pacheco (colleague at Universidad Mayor…
A conceptual framework for studying the strength of plant-animal mutualistic interactions
A paper presenting a conceptual framework for the study of the strength of plant-animal mutualistic interactions has been accepted for publication as a Reviews & Synthesis article in Ecology Letters. This is the result of a collaboration between Diego and…
A novel approach to assess biodiversity response to grazing in drylands
Vero published a paper proposing a novel methodological approach to compare community response to grazing gradients (double reciprocal analysis) in drylands. This analysis allowed for comparison of multi-taxa response under different seasons and management strategies and can be used as…
Ecosystem responses to livestock grazing in drylands
Vero published a paper in Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment on the ecosystem responses to livestock grazing in drylands, showing that overall community resilience decreases under increasing grazing pressure, regardless of management strategies. The study also showed that a short-period rotational…
 | Diego Vázquez on End-of-year group gathering |
 | EDGAR CHAVEZ GONZALE… on End-of-year group gathering |
| EDGAR on Annual group retreat in El Leo… |
| Edgar Chávez-Gonzále… on Edgar Chávez González is visit… |
| Diego Vázquez on Exotic plants and pollination… |
Ecological Interactions Lab 