Victor Saito

My long-term research goal is to understand the processes organizing the astonishing biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems, from the scale of riffles in small Atlantic Forest streams to the huge La Plata river basin. You will find me working at the Environmental Sciences Department at the Federal University of São Carlos, where I am an assistant professor trying to answer basic and applied questions about local (environmental filters, species interactions) and regional processes (dispersal, species pool characteristics) influencing the assembly and maintenance of ecological communities (e.g. species coexistence, functional and phylogenetic patterns). My previous research encompassed topics in numerical ecology, community ecology, limnology, biogeography and biomonitoring. In general, I like to tackle my questions with a diverse toolbox and so, I conduct observational studies with aquatic communities and ecosystems, as well as computational  simulations, modelling and mesocosm experimentation (check my ongoing projects). Of course, my research is only possible due to great students and collaborators around the world.