Prof. Dr. Diego P. Vázquez – Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

Prof. Dr. Diego P. Vázquez

Argentine Institute for Dryland Research, CONICET, and National University of Cuyo
Biology

External Senior Fellow (Marie S. Curie FCFP)
September 2016 – July 2017

Website

Last Update: 31.08.2017

Curriculum Vitae

I am a CONICET Principal Researcher at the Argentine Institute for Dryland Research, in Mendoza, Argentina. I am broadly interested in ecology, with an emphasis on community ecology, plant-animal interactions, especially pollination and other plant-animal mutualisms, ecological networks, and invasions biology. I am also an Associate Professor at the National University of Cuyo, where I teach Ecology, Conservation biology, and graduate-level courses. In addition, I serve as an associate editor of the journals Ecología Austral and Proceedings of the Royal Society B, and as a member of my institute’s Advisory Board. My past history includes being born and growing up in San Fernando, Buenos Aires, Argentina, studing Biology at the University of Buenos Aires, doing a Ph.D. at the University of Tennesse, Knoxville, and working as a post-doc at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Selected Publications

Vázquez DP, Gianoli E, Morris WF, Bozinovic F. 2015. Ecological and evolutionary impacts of increasing climatic variability. Biological Reviews, doi:10.1111/brv.12216
Vázquez DP, Ramos-Jiliberto R, Urbani P, Valdovinos FS. 2015. A conceptual framework for studying the strength of plant-animal mutualistic interactions. Ecology Letters 18: 385-400
Vázquez DP, Lomáscolo SB, Maldonado MB, Chacoff NP, Dorado J, Stevani EL, Vitale NL. 2012. The strength of plant-pollinator interactions. Ecology 93: 719-725
Vázquez DP, Morris WF, Jordano P. 2005. Interaction frequency as a surrogate for the total effect of animal mutualists on plants. Ecology Letters 8: 1088-1094
Vázquez DP, Aizen MA. 2004. Asymmetric specialization: a pervasive feature of plant-pollinator interactions. Ecology 85: 1251-1257

FRIAS Project

Understanding the ecological impacts of increased climatic variability

Climate change may influence species interactions and ecological communities by affecting organismal phenology (the timing of biological events), leading to phenological mismatches among interacting species. Future climate change scenarios predict changes in average climatic conditions, climatic variability and occurrence of climatic extremes. Most past studies on the ecological effects of climate change have focused on changes in average conditions, while few have considered changes in variability and extremes. This is what I propose to do at FRIAS. I will work with data on plant-pollinator interactions gathered during the last decade by my research group to tackle two broad questions. One concerns the consequences of phenological mismatches for the reproductive performance of pollinators. The other concerns the impact of such mismatches for entire communities of interacting species. I expect the proposed research to advance significantly our understanding of the potential ecological consequences of climate change.