Mauricio Diazgranados, PhD

Research Leader – Diversity & Livelihoods Diazgranados2squared

Natural Capital and Plant Health department

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Wellcome Trust Millennium Building, Wakehurst Place

Ardingly, West Sussex, RH17 6TN, UK

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Off. Tel: +44 (0) 1444 894 172

RESEARCH INTERESTS

I am interested in contributing to the study, sustainable use and conservation of plant diversity, particularly on tropical ecosystems, integrating various disciplines such as taxonomy, systematics, macroevolution, ecology, biogeography, and conservation biology. I am also intrigued by how climate change is impacting the biodiversity and how we can contribute from science to its conservation.

I have particular interest in the páramos, a widespread ecosystem in the high elevations of the northern Andes of South America, considered the fastest evolving biodiversity hotspot. As a critical ecosystem threatened by rising global temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns, páramos are an ideal study system for understanding not just rapid radiations but also the impacts of climate change.

Livelihoods: I am currently investigating the uses of plants and fungi worldwide, and how they relate to livelihoods of human communities.
Taxonomy: I am a specialist in Heliantheae s.l. (Compositae), and in particular in the subtribe Espeletiinae Cuatrec. (a.k.a. frailejones).
Systematics: I have worked or have ongoing projects on: Lythraceae (Ammannia, Hionanthera, Nesaea, and Rotala); Compositae (several groups, such as Espeletiinae, Gochnatia, Werneria s.l., and the Chiliotrichum group); Onagraceae (Ludwigia); Lamiaceae (Sideritis); and Fusarium, with emphasis on the mitochondrial genomes.
Macroevolution: I want to understand how speciation processes occur, and what are the main mechanisms. I am starting investigating hybridization as a major force of evolution in Compositae of the Neotropics.
Ecology: What are the main diversity patterns in the Neotropics? Are deterministic theories (e.g. directional turnover along gradients) more valid than more stochastic theories (e.g. non-directional variation)? I am investigating these patterns in the Guiana Shield.
Biogeography: I am working on the biogeographic relationships of the Compositae of the Andes (from northern Venezuela to Patagonia, as well as the Compositae in Colombia and South Africa. In addition, I am investigating the biogeographic relationships of the flora of the Guiana Shield.
Climate Change: Using ecological niche modeling and multiple climate scenarios, I am estimating future geographic distributions for several groups.
History of Science: Since 2005 I have been curating the Cuatrecasas' archives, held at the National Herbarium of the Smithsonian Institution

Resume Summary

I obtained a BS degree in Biology at the Javeriana University in Colombia (1999), and a specialization in Bioethics at the same institution (2005). I earned a PhD in Biology with concentration on Ecology, Evolution and Systematics at Saint Louis University and the Missouri Botanical Garden in USA (2012). For my BS thesis I studied the vegetation structure and composition of the Chicaque Natural Park (Colombia), and I developed an index to study the vegetation. My thesis in Bioethics was about a proposal of building a two-way bridge of knowledge between Ethics and Life Sciences. My dissertation research was on the taxonomy, systematics, biogeography and climate change impact on the frailejones (+143 species, subtribe Espeletiinae, Asteraceae).

My dissertation research

I investigated the phylogenetic and biogeographic relationships within the subtribe Espeletiinae Cuatrec. (Compositae). My goals were: 1) to conduct a thorough revision of the nomenclature for all the species of the subtribe; 2) to built an interactive digital identification key (available online at http://espeletia.org/Espeletia/Key.html); 3) to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships for the subtribe; and 4) to estimate the impacts of climate change of the future distribution of these species.

Other research projects

In 2012 I started a postdoctoral research at the NMNH, under the supervision of Dr. Vicki Funk, to investigate diversity patterns in the flora of the Guiana Shield. This is part of the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program (http://botany.si.edu/bdg/). I focused my attention to directional turnover along gradients and non-directional variation. I compiled a database of ~188,000 records to run all the GIS analyses. Currently we are preparing a manuscript that will be submitted within the following two months.