Lucía Vivanco: Lucía was a graduate student with a fellowship from the University of Buenos Aires and the YPF Foundation of Argentina who defended her thesis in July 2008. She is now working as a postdoctoral associate at UC Irvine, with Dr. Jennifer Martiny, examining the role of microbial communities in salt marshes on the California coast email: vivanco@ifeva.edu.ar

 

 

 

 

Marina Gonzalez-Polo: Marina is a graduate student with a fellowship from the Canon National Parks Scholars Program. She is interested in how spatial heterogeneity in soil resources affect microbial activity, particularly seen through extracellular enzymatic activity. She is exploring these ideas in two contrasting ecosystems: the Patgonian steppe where patchy vegetation creates hotspots of microbial activity; and a southern beech forest in Patagonia, where she is looking at the ways in which coarse woody debris affects microbial diversity and activity. email: maripolo@ifeva.edu.ar

 

 

 

 

Carla Giordano: Carla is a post-doctoral fellow with a CONICET fellowship. She is looking at how light quality, in particular red:far red ratios affect seed germination and seedling growth after a massive flowering event of the understorey bamboo in a native temperate forest in Argentina. Increased red:far red ratios in the understorey stimulated germination of the overstorey tree species, and the extensive gregarious flowering of the bamboo may be providing a 'window of opportunity' for regeneration of this native forest ecosystem. email: giordano@ifeva.edu.ar

 

 

 

 

 

Adriana Fernández Souto: Adriana is pursuing her master's degree and is focusing specifically on how aboveground diversity affects belowground soil communities. She has been exploring how changes in the diversity of arboreal species can affect the diversity and abundance of soil mesofauna in a native temperate Nothofagus forest in Patagonia. email: asouto@ifeva.edu.ar

 

Patricia Araujo: Pato is a new student who recently completed her undergraduate thesis in the Patagonian steppe with Dr. Austin, where she examined the importance of different groups of soil flora and fauna and their effects on litter decomposition. She is interested in exploring the importance of fungi and bacterial groups in different natural ecosystems, and the impact of afforestation on these relationships in human-impacted ecosystems. email: araujopa@ifeva.edu.ar

Graduate courses

Biodiversity: This graduate-level course focuses on issues related to biological diversity from genetic and species diversity to landscape diversity. The course focuses on patterns of biodiversity at different scales and the hypotheses that account for these patterns. Other topics include current evidence of the effects of changes in biodiversity on the functioning of ecosystems, scenarios of changes in biodiversity and their implications for conservation and the ability of ecosystems to provide goods and services to humans.

Ecology of arid ecosystems: This course focuses on the principles of water relations in arid ecosystems, which include movement of water in the soil and through soil-plant-atmosphere system. Central topics of the course are current evidence of adaptations of plants and microorganisms to arid environments. In addition, issues of vertical and spatial heterogeneity characteristic of arid ecosystems and the implications for their functioning are discussed. Finally, the course reviews management strategies that take advantage of the understanding of temporal variability characteristic of these ecosystems.

Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology: This course addresses the basic principles of the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Current evidence of the controls of primary production, nutrient cycling, and water relations in grassland ecosystems are the central topics of this course.