People

Joandry Cabrera - MSc Student

She was a Master student in Biodiversity, Operation and Management of Ecosystems at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU, Spain). Her thesis was jointly supervised by Dr Isabel Donoso (BC3) and Dr. Miguel Lurgi (Computational Ecology Lab, Swansea University - UK). Her study focused on understanding the structural patterns and drivers of variability in plant-frugivore seed dispersal networks.

Joandry is am a biologist graduated from the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), where she conducted her thesis on a population of Trachemys stejnegeri vicina. She worked as a research assistant on a project assessing the impact of climate variability on Strombus pugilis populations. Her experience also included research in fisheries biology and aquaculture, as well as herpetology and ornithology, conducting monitoring in urban parks and protected areas.

Paula Feldmann - MSc Student 

She pursued an International Master’s in Applied Ecology at the University of Coimbra. For her master’s thesis, she was exploring how plant invasions impact epiphyte diversity and the resilience of epiphyte-host networks in restored and invaded areas of the endemic Scalesia Forest in Galápagos. Under the supervision of Dr Isabel Donoso (BC3) and Dr. Ruben Heleno (U. Coimbra), she conducted fieldwork on Santa Cruz Island as a visiting scientist at the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF).

During her Bachelor’s in Biology and Geography at WWU Münster (Germany), she developed her own research project on biodiversity and restoration ecology in former coal mine sites. This experience deepened her skills in vegetation mapping, forest monitoring, and soil analysis, as well as independent research development. Beyond academia, Paula is passionate about science communication and environmental education. She worked as a mudflat guide in the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Wadden Sea, where she helped connect people with marine ecosystems and conservation.

Dr. Larissa Nowak - PhD student and postdoc researcher

Larissa completed her PhD at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center (SBiK-F), where I co-supervised her work on trait-based models of avian seed dispersal, showing how avian seed dispersal may be insufficient for plants to track future temperature change on tropical mountains. She later joined me as a postdoctoral researcher at IMEDEA (2022–2023), studying how invasive species alter the trait diversity of interacting avian frugivores and fleshy-fruited plants, revealing context-dependent impacts driven by native trait diversity.

Larissa now works back at Senckenberg on global and European biodiversity targets, developing ways to measure and downscale them to different sectors as part of a wider effort to help halt and reverse biodiversity loss.