Francisco I. Pugnaire

He holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from the Experimental Station of Arid Zones. He is part of the Functional Ecology Group, in the area of Community Ecology. His line of work focuses on interactions between plants and between soil microorganisms and plants. The aim is to test the extent to which biotic interactions direct the dynamics of plant communities and, by extension, processes at the ecosystem level. He works in high mountain field conditions (Sierra Nevada, Pyrenees, Alps, Atlas, Andes, Tibet) and in arid areas (SE of Spain, Senegal, Morocco, Chile) as well as in controlled conditions in cultivation chambers or greenhouses. It carries out determinations of phenotypic and physiological characters in plants and to evaluate the diversity and composition of microbial communities we use massive amplicon sequencing techniques, carrying out PCR amplification of ribosomal genes according to the standards of the international consortium Earth Microbiome Project. In quantitative terms, bacteria and fungi are determined by our own quantitative PCR methods developed at EEZA.

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1227-6827