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I got my MSc in Forestry and Environmental Sciences at the University of Basilicata (Potenza, Italy) in 2003 and the international PhD in Crop Systems, Forestry and Environmental Sciences in 2007 in the same University, working in Marco Borghetti’s group. During my PhD I developed two research lines: the first one focused on water relations of Pinus leucodermis Antoine (the oldest living species in Europe) during two growing seasons in one of its refuge sites at the tree line ecotone in the Pollino National Park (Southern Italy). The second one explored how forests coped with disturbances associated to anthropogenic activities, i.e., nitrogen emissions coming from different sources, namely traffic and industry. This latter research was developed during my stay (2005-2006) at Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, working with Rolf Siegwolf and Matthias Saurer (currently at the WSL in Zurich), where I was introduced to the wonderful world of stable carbon, oxygen and nitrogen isotopes (δ13C, δ18O, and δ15N) and their application to tree physiology and forest ecology studies. Since then, I have been using stable isotopes to trace and link carbon, nitrogen and water cycling in different forest ecosystems and shed light on new processes. During my PhD I also got the chance to be involved in the International project Mediterranean Terrestrial Ecosystem and Increasing Drought (MIND), founded by the V EU-Framework Programme investigating physiological and structural changes of Mediterranean forests to intensification of drought conditions.
From 2009 to 2012 I joined Maurizio Mencuccini group at School of GeoSciences (University of Edinburgh, UK) as a Newton International Fellow funded by the Royal Society, the British Academy and the Royal Academy of Engineering. I investigated the effects of nitrogen deposition on tree water use efficiency and nitrogen availability by combining experimental manipulation with observations along a gradient of nitrogen deposition across the UK (in collaboration with colleagues at the CEH, Forest Research and NERC Isotope Geosciences Lab in the UK and Purdue University in the US). Other than the application of the triple isotope approach (δ13C, δ18O, and δ15N) in tree rings, I considered the analyses of δ15N in NH4 and NO3, and δ18O and δ17O in NO3 in rainfall and throughfall forest water, in order to elucidate what’s going on (in term of nitrogen transformation) during the interactions between atmospheric nitrogen and tree canopies. During my postdoc in Edinburgh I was also involved in the JACARE expedition coordinated by Patrick Meir and Owen Atkin (ANU, Canberra, Australia), Yadivinder Malhi (University of Oxford, UK), Greg Asner (Stanford, USA), Norma Salinas (UNSAAC, Cusco, Peru), John Lloyd (University of Leeds, UK) The project aimed to link forest canopy chemistry, physiology, composition and function with over flights of the Carnegie Airborne Observatory for tropical forests in Peru. This gave me the great opportunity to work in tropical forests and lead, together with colleagues Yoko Ishida, Thomas Domingues, Lasantha Weerasinghe and Odhran O'Sullivan, intensive leaf gas exchange and traits measurements at several sites in lowland Amazonian up to 3300 m asl in the Andean tropical moist forests of Peru. You can enjoy here the amazing photo taken by a professional photographer, Jake Bryant. From 2013 to 2016 I crossed the ocean to join Scott Ollinger and Heidi Asbjornsen’s groups at the Earth Systems Research Center (University of New Hampshire, UNH, USA) as post-doctoral Research Associate. I worked on a NASA funded project, addressing changes over the last two decades of water-use efficiency in relation to nitrogen, water availability and vegetation biodiversity for eleven AmeriFlux forests across the US. The project included a combination of techniques applied at the tree to landscape level (e.g., foliar and tree ring δ13C, δ18O, carbon and water fluxes estimated from eddy covariance technique and remotely sensed canopy %N). Working in Scott's group has allowed me to scale up my understating on physiological mechanisms at the leaf and tree level to the whole ecosystem. This has helped me to gain a big picture of how forests functioning is affected by and, at the same time, feedback to climate. From June 2016 to August 2019 I worked at the CREAF alongside Maurizio Mencuccini and Josep Peñuelas supported first by a Marie-Curie Sklodowska (MSC) fellowship (2016-2018) and later by national or EU funding (2018-2019) awarded to Jordi Martínez-Vilalta and Maurizio Mencuccini (DRESS project) and Josep-Maria Espelta and Joan Pino (SPONFOREST project). The MSC fellowship - NITRIPHYLL- aimed to elucidate canopy nitrogen processes (particularly nitrification) by integrating multiple scales of investigation, i.e., from microbial DNA (by using meta-barcoding and q-PCR techniques for characterizing microbial communities in the phyllosphere and quantify functional genes related to N cycling) to whole ecosystem N cycling (by looking at N fluxes and their isotopic composition). I also collaborated with Josep Espelta, Joan Pino and a number of other researchers in Spain, France, Australia and Canada on a research project aiming at studying ecophysiological mechanisms and nitrogen dynamics underpinning forest natural regeneration on previous land-use in mountainous areas in Spain. In October 2019 I joined the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the University of Bologna (Italy) as senior assistant professor, collaborating with Federico Magnani. Other than keeping up with my research activities, I also teach Forest Management (6 cfu) class within the first cycle degree in Land and agro-forestry technologies. |
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Competitive grants and awards
Serving as reviewers for several journals in my field (Global Change and Biology, Tree Physiology, New Phytologist, Frontiers in Plant Science, Biogeosciences, Ecological Indicators, Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, Plant Cell and Environment, Dendrochronologia, Scientific Reports (Nature), Nature, Nature Climate Change, PNAS, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology) and as subject editor for iforest-Biogeosciences and Forestry
- EU Horizon 2020: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (2016-2018) ;
- The Royal Society, the British Academy and the Royal Academy of Engineering: Newton International Fellowship (2009-2011);
- European Science Foundation (ESF) within the Nitrogen in Europe program: Visiting researcher (3 months) at the University of Edinburgh (UK) (2009);
- ESF within the Stable Isotopes in Biospheric-Atmospheric Exchange program: visiting PhD student at the Paul Scherrer Institute (CH) (2005-2006);
- SISEF, V Congress: best presentation award (2005)
Serving as reviewers for several journals in my field (Global Change and Biology, Tree Physiology, New Phytologist, Frontiers in Plant Science, Biogeosciences, Ecological Indicators, Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, Plant Cell and Environment, Dendrochronologia, Scientific Reports (Nature), Nature, Nature Climate Change, PNAS, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology) and as subject editor for iforest-Biogeosciences and Forestry
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