My research is focused in the emerging field of movement ecology, which aims to reveal the complex forces that drive movement and dispersal patterns of animals (including humans). Improved tracking technology (GPS, bio-loggers, smart-phones) demands an integrative view, with new computational tools and modeling frameworks to understand unprecedented levels of detail from a constantly growing number of species. I am contributing to this scientific revolution based on a broad, highly collaborative and interdisciplinary research program, founded solidly on statistical physics and quantitative ecology. A central question in my research is how animals use information and their motor properties to optimize search strategies. The mechanistic linkage between behavioral processes and movement patterns is also key to understanding globalised problems such as the perpetuation of social inequality among humans or the spread of vector-borne infectious diseases.
Keywords: Movement Ecology, Search behaviour, Optimal foraging, Migration, Conservation Biology, Invasion ecology, Human mobility, Computational and Theoretical Ecology
Projects
- Big Mosquito Bites
- Human-Mosquito Interaction Project
- Social uses of search ecology: stochastic foundations and experimental research
- Noves eines de participació en ciència ciutadana: laboratoris de validació i co-creació per AtrapaelTigre.com
- Citizen science to improve the research and management of the tiger mosquito in the Province of Girona
- ICARUS Initiative: Accelerometry Behavioural Annotation
- Tiger mosquito invasion in Spain: public health and global change