Juan Pablo Benavides Tocarruncho

Juan is a biologist with an ecological and data science background. Broad interest in tropical plants and ecological processes at the species, community, and ecosystem levels. His work focuses on arid regions, such as dry forests and savannas, looking at the underground functioning of plants in relation to ecological restoration, species demography, drought, and fire dynamics. He also has experience in ecosystem modelling; he developed an agent-based model of disturbances in tropical Andean forests for his MSc dissertation. During his PhD, he works with Fernanda de Vasconcellos Barros and Lucy Rowland's group, along with Caroline Lehman's group (U. of Edinburgh), on contrasting drought and fire strategies across tropical African and Latin American savannas, focusing on hydraulic traits and the underground effects of different communities in response to drought and fire.