The EED Lab
Eco - Evo - Devo
Our team
Pre-doctoral Researcher
Delgadillo, Alexandra
Alexandra is interested in conservation and evolutionary ecology of leptodactylid frogs living in extreme environments: the rock pools of inselbergs on the shore of the Orinoco river. She is studying how amphibian larvae respond to the challenges imposed by very high water temperatures and high risk of pool drying by modulating their development, considering that at the same time they are at risk of predation.
Pre-doctoral Researcher
De Felipe, Miguel
Miguel has broad interests in the intersection between wetland ecology and conservation in a changing world. He currently works at Doñana's Biological Station, where he combines GIS, long time series, field observations and experiments to address the responses of wetland biological communities to anthropic and climate-driven alterations in flooding dynamics.
Investigadora Científica CSIC
Díaz-Paniagua, Carmen
She's interested in ecological interactions in freshwater systems.
Investigador Científico CSIC
Gomez-Mestre, Ivan
I am interested in the evolution of phenotypic plasticity and the role of plasticity in evolution, using mostly amphibians as study system. In particular, I am interested in the evolution of developmental rate and reproductive modes across amphibians.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Guevara Molina,
Estefany Caroline
My research is focused on the effects of hydration and temperature on the thermal tolerance of different life stages of amphibians, in a context of global change. I am interested in assessing the effects of environmental cues on behavioral and physiological responses of anurans and the mechanisms involved in those responses.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Jimeno, Blanca
I am interested in developing interdisciplinary approaches to investigate physiological and molecular processes underlying coping abilities and individual responses to environmental challenges. My research brings together endocrinology, metabolism physiology, behavioural ecology, and (epi)genomics, in free-living and captive birds
Científico Titular CSIC
Liedtke, H. Christoph
I am interested in applying different approaches to studying trait evolution at different scales. My main research lines are centred on
(1) describing macroevolutionary patterns in trait evolution through the use of comparative phylogenetic methods, (2) using transcriptomic & epigenetic approaches to study the role of adaptive plasticity in trait evolution, and (3) studying the systematics & biogeography of African amphibians.
Pre-doctoral Researcher
Monreal, Adrián
Adrián is interested in ecological interactions and the ecology of freshwater ecosystems. Focusing on temporary ponds, he is studying how the tadpoles of different sympatric anuran species interact with the different aquatic macrophytes they occur with, leading to changes in the whole pond habitat that may affect other organisms inhabiting the ponds.
Pre-doctoral Researcher
Rico, Rafael
Rafa has been interested in evolutionary ecology since he started his studies in biology. He is currently studying the behavioral and morphological antipredator responses of various anuran species and their dependence upon stress hormones. He is also addressing the adaptive divergence in developmental plasticity among populations from a functional genomic perspective.
Marie-Slobodka Curie Fellow
Ruthsatz, Katharina
Katharina is interested in (amphibian) physiology, endocrinology, and conservation. In particular, she investigates how global change might affect amphibian development, energy budgets, and survival. She is interested in how amphibians might cope with novel environments and challenges by exhibiting phenotypic plasticity.
Pre-doctoral Researcher
Sianes, Paula
Paula is a biologist who has always been intrigued by genetics and epigenetics. She has recently become interested in bioinformatics and now studies how genome size and architecture may have been shaped during evolution in relation to developmental rate and plasticity. To this end, she works with the larvae of several closely related anuran species.
Visiting Scholars
Erasmus+ Predoctoral Researcher
Skakun, Anastasiia
Anastasiia's research focuses on the effects of anthropogenic landscapes on amphibian populations in Slovakia. She aims to study variation in metamorphic parameters between urban vs. rural environments and to identify landscape barriers affecting populations of endangered amphibian species.
Former Group Members
Technician
Asencio, Lola
Lola's original training was in anatomy and pathology, and over the years she has added skills in molecular biology, physiology and animal husbandry. She developed an interest on amphibians, water fleas and beetles alike. She has now obtained her Masters degree and become a high school teacher.
Pre-doctoral Researcher
Arribas, Rosa
Rosa's core interests are on biodiversity conservation and freshwater ecology, and she has studied the consequences of competition and predation at multiple trophic levels within aquatic communities.
Ramón y Cajal Researcher
Burraco, Pablo
Pablo is interested in the physiological basis of life history evolution & senescence. In particular he is interested in how enhanced growth & accelerated development affect oxidative stress and telomere length during larval development. He is now studying the relationship between oxidative stress and senescence and transgenerational effects. He has also focused on physiological aspects of radioecology.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Cabrera-Guzman, Elisa
Elisa came as a postdoctoral researcher supported by CONACyT. She is interested in many aspects of the ecology of amphibians and reptiles. She has studied the effects of biological invasions and the effects of habitat fragmentation on animal populations and communities. Her research project in our group involved the study of the responses (morphological, ecological and behavioral) of native newts and frogs to invasive fish in temporary ponds.
Predoctoral Researcher
Castaño, Sanz Verónica
Verónica dedicated her PhD to investigate transgenerational effects, where parents' experience can affect the phenotype of their offspring through non-genetic inheritance. She is interested in paternal and maternal effects using the seed beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus, as study organism in order to better understand the working mechanisms, the prevalence and the evolutionary role of transgenerational effects.
Pre-doctoral Researcher
Charbonnier, Julie
Julie has recently obtained her PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. She was co-adviced by James Vonesh and Ivan Gomez-Mestre and has conducted really interesting work on carry-over effects of alterations in growth and developmental rate during larval stages of toads and salamanders. She is also modelling how the consequences of such carry-over effects scale-up to shape the demography of populations.
Visiting Scholar
Kulkarni, Saurabh
Saurabh joined the lab for a few stages while he was a graduate student in the Buchholz lab at the University of Cincinnati. In the lab he worked on comparative endocrinology of larval development in spadefoot toads, and the metabolic consequences of induced developmental acceleration. Saurabh is currently Postdoctoral Associte of Pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, CT.
Pre-doctoral Researcher
Lee, Hyeun-Ji
Hyeun-Ji conducted her PhD thesis in the group. She took a truly multidisciplinary approach from transcriptomics to stable isotopes to study population differentiation in life-histories and developmental plasticity across amphibian populations. She is also interested in carry-over effects across life stages and transgenerational effects of exposure to different environmental factors.
Group Technician
Martín Díaz, Paula
Paula has worked with movement ecology and habitat use/selection of GPS tagged animals before.
She has also been interested in phenotypic plasticity and evolution of spadefoot toads, specially in the differences between American and European species.
She has since pursued a career as a specialized graphic designer and scientific illustrator.
Associate Researcher
Martinez-Solano, Iñigo
Iñigo was a Severo Ochoa Research Fellow while at EBD and is now Tenure Researcher at the National Museum of Natural History in Madrid, Spain. Iñigo is an expert herpetologist with broad interests in systematics, phylogeography and evolutionary biology of amphibians.
Pre-doctoral Researcher
Piñero, María Jesús
Mari did her PhD in the group focusing on the ecological role of amphibian larvae in temporary ponds and their interaction with aquatic plants. Her ultimate goal is to provide important insight towards a better conservation of freshwater habitats. Her interests are to discover the interaction networks of amphibian larvae with different components of freshwater ecosystems, identifying threats to amphibians and their habitats.
Visiting Scholar
Polo-Cavia, Nuria
Nuria is now Assistant Professor at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She is a behavioral ecologist and is currently studying adaptive geographic variation in learning capacity among amphibian populations with different degrees of exposure to invasive predators.
Technician
Ramírez, Mamen
Mamen is a field biologist at heart, and has participated in extensive and intensive field work. She worked with us as technician conducting experiments on water fleas, assessing behavioral plasticity in response to predators.
Visiting Scholar
Wu, Chi-Shiun
Chi-Shiun Wu is Associate Professor at the Chinese Culture University, in Taipei (Taiwan). He is expert in amphibian ecophysiology, especially in responses to osmotic stress and adaptation to different thermal regimes.
Former Master students
Escribano, Pablo
Pablo did his Masters Thesis in 2016 on tadpole-plant interactions, examining the relationship between plant quality and body condition and larval development in amphibians.
Marina Garrido Priego
She has an interest in ecology & conservation on amphibians. She previously worked on ecological restoration in the rainforest of Costa Rica, studying dung beetle diversity and amphibian communities. Currently, she is working with an endangered & endemic amphibian species of Costa Rica analyzing its ecological niche & studying its home range, movements, and microhabitat. She is doing her PhD at the University of Bern.
Lopez Malvar, Ana
Ana did her Masters Thesis on parental effects on condition-dependent expression of male horns in dung beetles, co-adviced by Paco Garcia-Gonzalez.
López-Hervás, Karen
She is interested in evolution, ecology & conservation of herpetofauna. She is passionate about understanding the underlying mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity, in particular background matching, aposematism, and predator defense mechanisms. She used transcriptomics to study the regulation of plasticity in pigmentation in amphibian larvae. She is now working towards obtaining her PhD at the Max Planck Institute.
Navazo, Tomás
Tomás is studying developmental plastic responses in spadefoot toad tadpoles against conflicting environmental stimuli, such as pond drying and predator presence. He is combining outdoor mesocosms experiments with physiological analyses.
Soler, Diego
Diego is uncovering potential cryptic species in a group of understudied African toads, and he's using phylogenetic reconstruction to understand the evolution of morphological innovations arisen within the group.
Torres Montoro, Juan Carlos
Juan Carlos did his Masters Thesis on consequences of developmental alterations on body condition and gonadal maturation in spadefoot toads.
He is currently a high school teacher.
