My research focuses on analyzing the impacts of climate change on the ecophysiological and functional adaptations of plants in water-limited Mediterranean ecosystems, particularly on their water and nutrient use strategies and their biogeochemical functioning. These questions are key to understanding plant species responses to global change and their potential effects on ecosystem functioning. I combine several approaches (manipulative field and greenhouse experiments, global databases) and tools (plant functional traits, stable isotopes, ecophysiological measurements) to study plant resource use at the species and community levels. I am a specialist in the use of stable isotopes and functional traits to study plant resource use strategies.

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I obtained my PhD in 2010 (FPI grant) at EEZA-CSIC. Since then, I have had 10 postdoctoral contracts (including an Ayuda para la Formación Postdoctoral contract (former Juan de la Cierva) and in 2021, I secured an assistant professor position (Prof. Ayte. Doctor de Excelencia, 1st ranked by ACSUCYL) at the University of León where I started my own research group (1 PhD and 2 graduate students) and fostered strong collaborations with national and international leaders on plant and soil ecology (Drs. Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, Eric Garnier from CEFE-CNRS). I have conducted my research in different top leading institutions in France, USA, Chile, Laos, Nicaragua and Costa Rica accumulating 53 months of international experience that allowed me to build an extensive international network publishing with top international researchers (Drs. Cahterine Roumet, Cyrille Violle, Ronald J. Ryel, Richard Bardgett). During my extensive scientific career, I have contributed significantly to advancing the knowledge on plant water use strategies and their coordination with C and nutrient strategies in Mediterranean ecosystems, which has important implications for plant coexistence and survival in resource limited ecosystems. I have also contributed to demonstrating that climate change had strong detrimental effects on plant physiology, nutrient status and water use strategies in dryland ecosystems reducing plant survival and productivity. Among my research achievements I highlight the discovery of a worldwide root economics spectrum at the community level, with strong implications for decomposition and nutrient and C cycling. These results have resulted in 42 SCI articles (60% D1, 95% Q1), 17 in top ecology and plant science categories (5 with IF>10 and 12 with IF>5). I published 19 of them as first author (18 Q1) and 4 as senior author (2 D1 and 2 Q1). I highlight a high impact article in Nature Plants as a first author. My articles have been cited 1519/2062 times, my H index is 22/23 (Scopus/Google Scholar).