Grupos de investigación

Rafael Barrientos

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My main research line is focused on Road Ecology, a discipline that was born at the end of the last century but has progressed a lot since then. I am interested in several factors such as the disruption of predator-prey relationships caused by roads; ecosystem services that are affected by the road network; the impacts that roads may have on the evolutionary processes of the nearby populations; the variation of the road-kill patterns over time; or the factors contributing to carcass detectability and persistence.

I have also studied the impacts of other linear infrastructures such as railways on wildlife, co-publishing the book Railway Ecology. I have also investigated bird collisions with electrical wires and the mitigation measures applied to minimise them.

My research career began with the study of the ecology of peripheral populations, focusing my PhD thesis on the trumpeter finch (Bucanetes githagineus). I studied from colonization patterns based on genetic tools to the habitat selection or the parasite load that vertebrates have to face in different types of populations (central, peripheral, island).


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