Professor of Functional Ecology Carlos Pérez Carmona gives his inaugural lecture on a trait-based approach to biodiversity

On Wednesday, 19 March at 16:15, Carlos Pérez Carmona, Professor of Functional Ecology at the University of Tartu, will give his inaugural lecture entitled “A trait-based approach to biodiversity” in the university's assembly hall. The lecture will be in English.

Biodiversity is the foundation of human livelihoods, yet it is being lost and transformed at an unprecedented rate due to global change. Understanding and measuring these changes requires moving beyond species counts and looking into the traits of organisms, such as the chemical composition of leaves and the thickness of roots in plants, or the body size and foraging behaviour in animals. Traits determine how organisms adapt to and survive in different environments and how they affect ecosystem processes. Because of this, trait diversity is considered to be the aspect of biodiversity that is more strongly linked to the functioning of ecosystems. Professor Pérez Carmona’s research explores how to quantify trait diversity in biological communities, integrating probabilistic methods with large-scale ecological patterns.

In his inaugural lecture, Pérez Carmona will present the Trait Probability Density (TPD) approach developed for functional diversity analysis, share insights into above- and below-ground plant traits, and speak about the role of species traits in predicting extinction risk across the tree of life. By linking theory, methodology, and empirical applications, Pérez Carmona will propose a unified framework for studying trait diversity, with implications for conservation and ecosystem management in a rapidly changing world.

Carlos Pérez Carmona is Professor of Functional Ecology at the University of Tartu and a member of the Macroecology Group. He obtained his PhD in Ecology from the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain, and was a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic. His research focuses on measuring trait diversity in biological communities, integrating methodological developments with empirical applications. His research has been published in prestigious scientific journals such as Trends in Ecology and Evolution (2016), Nature (2021) and Science Advances (2021). In 2024, he received the ERC Consolidator Grant and the Estonian National Research Award in Geo- and Life Sciences.

The aim of the inaugural lecture is to give the new professor an opportunity to introduce himself, his specialisation and field of research. At the end of the public lecture, the audience can ask the professor questions. Everyone interested is welcome. A live webcast will be available on UTTV.