About the talk

The study of ancient ecosystems offers a unique opportunity to understand how ecological structures respond to environmental change. By integrating fossil data with ecological network analysis, this research reconstructs the functional and trophic organization of mammal communities over millions of years. The results reveal long periods of stability interrupted by rapid reorganizations driven by major climatic shifts. This deep-time perspective provides key insights into ecosystem resilience and informs strategies for biodiversity conservation under global change.

About the speaker

Fernando Blanco is a paleoecologist working as a postdoc at the Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC), where he applies network analysis to study the functional structure dynamics of Neotropical suboscines. He previously worked as a postdoc at the University of Gothenburg and The Open University, applying artificial intelligence to investigate biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics in deep time. He earned his PhD in Biology from Humboldt University of Berlin and the Museum für Naturkunde, where he studied the stability and reorganization of mammal communities over the past 65 million years. His research integrates fossil data, functional ecology, and quantitative modeling to understand how ecosystems respond to major climatic and environmental changes. (X account: https://x.com/FernandoBlancoS)