CV page

Joan Díaz Calafat

Presentation

I am currently doing my PhD in the Southern Sweden forest research centre (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences). My research focuses on the interaction between climate and trees and how it drives ecosystem processes and influences understory vegetation and pollinator availability.

Research

My research interests are related to ecology and biodiversity. I am interested in how species interact with each other and their environment. A great (if not the best) example of a biodiverse group full of interactions to study are insects. I took a like in entomology during my bachelor's degree years, and I haven't stopped learning from it since then. Within the insect world, I am particularly keen on Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants), to which I devote quite some time doing some independent research work on their ecology, taxonomy and biogeography.

In my PhD project, I study how the interaction between climate and forest composition affects understory vegetation and their associated pollinator communities.

I am also fond of statistics and modeling.

Background

I earned my BSc in Biology in the University of the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Spain). Later, I studied a MSc in Biology with major in biotic interactions at Wageningen University & Research (the Netherlands). My minor MSc thesis concerned behaviour and memory of parasitic wasps (using Cotesia glomerata (Linnaeus, 1758) as a model) through classical pavlovian conditioning. I studied how experiences leading to conflicting memory associations affected short term memory. On the other hand, my major thesis involved pollinators and the potential of different habitats to sustain their populations. I surveyed five different habitats with two different methods as a part of a 5-year project aiming at the conservation of local pollinator populations through landscape reconnectivity. Later on I was employed within the same project as a student assistant.

More recently, I started my PhD at the Southern Swedish Forest Research Center from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.