Marcela Cely Santos

I am a biologist from Colombia interested in the construction of sustainable and fair food systems, and in their implication on biodiversity conservation. At present I would like to analyze how the socio-economic context of farmers in Colombia determines agricultural management practices, temporal and spatial agribiodiversity and thus, landscape configuration, and how this affects the spatial and temporal migration dynamics among organisms related to critical ecosystem services (pollinators, pest controllers and/or seed dispersers). I expect to integrate different methodologies as manipulative experiments and GIS/remote sensing to test for these relationships at different scales and also, to integrate them to the social dynamics of land use in my homeland. Besides this research focus, I am also interested in science communication and education. I believe the most legitimate door to conservation is understanding, and we, as scientists, have a critical role on building a bridge to broader communities to achieve this goal. Currently, I work with a group of young professionals in Colombia also interested in building a space to exchange knowledge and to work towards community empowerment with indigenous youth from La Primavera, a remote area in our eastern valleys. You're more than welcome to visit http://pejaniaira.blogspot.com if you want to know more.