Jose Ignacio Fernandez de La Pradilla Villar

Graduated in BSc (Hons) in Ecosystems Biology by the University of the Basque Country in Spain (2000), em MRes in Environmental Biology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland (2003) and PhD in Biological Sciences by the University of Aberdeen in Scotland (2010). Currently postdoctoral fellow at the Instituto de Biociências at the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho UNESP (Brazil). His research seeks to understand how anthropogenic disturbance affects ecological processes at the interface between population ecology, community ecology and ecosystems ecology. He has mainly worked in northern grassland ecosystems and tropical forests, investigating how livestock grazing and defaunation affect populations and interactions between large and small herbivorous/frugivorous mammals, their predators and their food resources. Currently conducting postdoctoral research, he is investigating the role of animal behaviour and spatial interactions in mediating trophic cascades, niche partitioning and community dynamics in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil biodiversity hotspot, and how these processes are affecting other ecosystem services, such as nutrient transport and distribution. (Fonte: Currículo Lattes)