Virgilio Hermoso López

Associé

PROGRAMME / Biologie de la conservation

PhD in 2008 with a focus on the ecological health of Mediterranean rivers and the spatial allocation of conservation efforts. Six years of postdoctoral research in Australia (2009–2014) at the University of Queensland and Griffith University contributed to the advancement of systematic conservation planning in freshwater ecosystems, developing innovative approaches to address the specific needs of these systems and to identify priority areas for biodiversity protection.

Currently a Senior Researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) at the Doñana Biological Station and associate of the CTFC. His research addresses the challenges that global change poses to biodiversity, with a focus on disturbance regimes, land-use change, and climate warming. Work integrates ecology, mathematics, and computer science to design tools and strategies for conservation under dynamic conditions and limited resources. From 2015 to 2021, as a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the CTFC, research continued on freshwater conservation planning and the evaluation of European conservation policies, including the design of Green Infrastructure networks. He has co-authored more than 140 peer-reviewed publications, of which over 90% are in first-quartile journals such as Nature, Science, Science Advances, Global Change Biology, Conservation Letters, Journal of Applied Ecology, and Conservation Biology. Forty-eight of these works are first-authored, alongside 11 book chapters, four of them led. Research has received 6,790 citations, with an H-index of 47 and an i10-index of 113 (Google Scholar, October 2024). Board memberships include the Key Biodiversity Area Standards and Appeals Committee, BirdLife International, and the Freshwater Biodiversity Observation Network (FW BON), with previous service on the Freshwater Working Group of the Society for Conservation Biology (2011–2018).