With the recent developments in applied mathematics and molecular techniques, we believe that the classical view of Ecology, Conservation, Evolution and Genetics as different disciplines no longer holds. Our research interest is right at the intersection of these disciplines and  we focus on applied as well as theoretical aspects of population functioning and management.

Our main interest is in the study of population dynamics and evolutionary demography. We base our research on long-terms individual based data of several vertebrates including birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians.  We use mathematical as well as genetic techniques to:

• Estimate demographic parameters and analyse the influence of environmental variability on population and community dynamics in space and time.
• Provide wildlife managers with information for their decision-making processes when faced with the complex process of global change, which includes not only climate but all other aspects of biodiversity loss due to human activity.
• Study the evolution of individual life-history tactics tackling evolutionary problems such as the cost of reproduction and the adaptive changes in sex-ratio.
• Investigate dispersal patterns, hybridization processes or delineation of appropriate wildlife management units.

Our more recent studies incorporate the emerging area of landscape genetics that now provides a new approach to define dispersal patterns, evaluate corridors, and identify population structure using molecular genetics data.

We are conducting our own long-term monitoring studies for over 20 years on several species of seabirds in the western Mediterranean. We are also collaborating on the study of population ecology and evolutionary demography with many groups all over the world (see collaborators).

And last but not least, we are a group of friends who share a passion for investigating and preserving our natural environment.

Population Ecology Group

Department of Biodiversity and Conservation