Awaken scientific vocations to investigate biodiversity in semi-arid ecosystems

This is the main objective of the conferences organized by professors in the area of Biodiversity and Conservation, aimed at undergraduate students from American universities. These activities are part of an introductory program to research plants and lichens that develop on gypsum soils.

Irene Vega

In the framework of the Gyp-NextGen project, the second days for the training of future scientists have been held. The objective of this initiative, organized in collaboration with the URJC Global Change Research Institute, is to awaken in students, who are still carrying out their degree studies, interest in research on plants and lichens that develop on plaster floors. The project has a total duration of three years, during which students will develop introductory research activities.

Gyp-NextGen is funded by the National Science Foundation and is made up of six institutions, three of them North American: New Mexico State University, John Carroll University and Oberlin College; and three Spanish: the University of Almería, the Institute of Pyrenean Studies (CSIC) and the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC). The URJC professors participating in this project are Ana García-Cervigón, Aranzazu Luzuriaga, Silvia Matesanz, María Prieto and Ana M. Sánchez, researchers in the area of Biodiversity and Conservation. “In each edition, we work with six students, two from each of the North American centers, and the course ends with a stay for all of them in Spanish institutions to develop a research project in collaboration with the Spanish researchers who participate,” the teachers point out. “This week the students of this edition have arrived and we have been with them in the field to teach them about the ecosystems of Madrid plaster,” they add.

In addition to the activities carried out in the field, several presentations have been held in which researchers from the six institutions have participated. North American students and predoctoral students from the URJC have also presented the projects they are developing in these ecosystems.

This edition has highlighted the value of these ecosystems for the study of evolutionary processes that allow us to better understand how organisms adapt to the environment, even to environments as restrictive as gypsum soils. “The program is contributing positively to drawing attention to one of the most unique and valuable ecosystems of our territory and which, however, due to its aridity and steppe character, without trees, is far from the appreciation it deserves, both by of the population as well as of some administrations,” the teachers conclude.