I hold bachelor’s degrees in Biology (2015) and Geography (2018) from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, where my theses consisted, respectively, in a peat-based reconstruction of the Subantarctic Holocene paleoclimate and in an assessment of the current conservation state of alkaline peatlands (habitat 7230 - Natura 2000) in Spain. In 2017, I finished my Erasmus Mundus MSc in Applied Ecology at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, with the focus on climatic constraints of a micro-endemic, endangered lizard. This broad background and international early-research experience have directed my interests mainly towards biogeographic approaches to conservation, but also to the social conflicts of wildlife conservation in the Anthropocene. I am currently a PhD student at BIODESERTS research group, with a project on comparative phylogeography of the Sahara-Sahel ecoregion. This work aims to disentangle the historic role of dry/humid Plio-Pleistocene climatic cycles in shaping the historical biogeography of the largest desert on Earth, a fascinating system hosting unique biodiversity which is yet largely unknown. My main objectives are to test: i) climate-induced allopatric speciation as the main diversification agent; ii) the location of biodiversity refugia and dispersal corridors; iii) the relationships between genetic diversity/structure and environmental-dependent taxa persistence in refugia. I examine whether genetic structure and genetic/spatial isolation are strong in low dispersal ability taxa, and whether taxa-specific habitat requirements are related to distinct spatial/temporal locations of refugia and of dispersal corridor dynamics. For this purpose, I integrate distribution, climate, landscape, and genetic data from >30 co-distributed vertebrate taxa with different dispersal abilities and habitat traits.
