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Alonso Ramírez (ecologist)

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Alonso Ramírez
Born
Luis Alonso Ramírez Ulate
NationalityCosta Rican
Alma materNational University of Costa Rica (B.S), University of Georgia (M.Sc, Ph.D)
Known forTropical stream ecology
Scientific career
FieldsEcology, Limnology
InstitutionsNorth Carolina State University University of Puerto Rico
Thesis Control of benthic assemblages in detritus-based tropical streams (2000)
Doctoral advisorCatherine Pringle

Luiz Alonso Ramírez Ulate is a Costa Rican ecologist and a professor at North Carolina State University. From 2020 to 2021 he served as president of the Society for Freshwater Science.[1]

Early life and education

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Ramírez grew up in Costa Rica and has stated that even as a child, he was "fascinated" with dragonflies.[2] He attended the National University of Costa Rica as an undergraduate, performing research in stream ecology and writing a thesis about dragonfly nymphs.[2] Ramírez conducted ecological fieldwork at the La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica, including during graduate school as a masters and doctoral student working with Catherine Pringle.[3] Papers from his graduate research on macroinvertebrate community structure[4] and decomposition[5] in Costa Rican streams have each been cited over 150 times by other scientists. At the same time as he was conducting this work, he published a taxonomic checklist of Odonate species in Costa Rica with two colleagues.[6]

Research and career

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Ramírez was hired as an assistant professor at the University of Puerto Rico in 2001; in 2018, he moved to North Carolina State University.[2] He also served as Director of the El Verde Field Station for 15 years.[2] Ramírez's research focuses on freshwater invertebrates, particularly in natural and urban tropical streams in Puerto Rico,[7] Costa Rica,[5] Mexico,[8] and elsewhere. He is a leading voice in the discussion of tropical streams ecology.[9][10] He has also continued his work on the taxonomy, morphology, and traits of freshwater macroinvertebrates, broadening the scope of this work from dragonflies in Costa Rica to aquatic insects throughout Latin America.[11]

Ramírez has continued some collaboration with colleagues from the University of Georgia, including Pringle, Amy Rosemond, and Judy Meyer. For example, together they published research combining observational and experimental laboratory and field approaches to show that natural gradients in phosphorus availability alter organic matter decomposition by microbial communities in tropical streams. Ramírez has also contributed to globally coordinated efforts to understand the drivers of organic matter decomposition across biomes.[12][13]

Much of Ramírez's work focuses on the effects of urbanization, disturbance, and extreme weather events on tropical stream community structure and function. Ramírez and his colleagues showed that urbanization depletes macroinvertebrate diversity in tropical streams, leading to reduced rates of organic matter decomposition.[7] After a severe drought in 2015, Ramírez and colleagues showed that streams in Luquillo Experimental Forest underwent drying and became intermittent, leading to anoxic conditions and altering invertebrate communities.[14] After Hurricane Maria in 2017, R and colleagues found that Puerto Rico's native fish were unaffected by flooding, while non-native fish were washed away or killed by debris.[15]

Ramírez founded a network of Latin American freshwater scientists, Macrolatinos@, in 2012.[2] Before being elected the President of the Society for Freshwater Science, Ramírez had served the society in multiple other roles, including on its Graduate Resources Committee, its International Coordination Committee, and its Latin American chapter.[2] He is also a member of the editorial board of the journals Freshwater Science[16] and Neotropical Biodiversity.[17]

References

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  1. ^ "Prof. Alonso Ramirez elected President of the Society of Freshwater Science | Applied Ecology | NC State University". 2019-05-29. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Election Biosketch - Candidate for President | Society for Freshwater Science". freshwater-science.org. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  3. ^ "People". Pringle Lab. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  4. ^ Ramírez, Alonso; Pringle, Catherine M. (1998-12-01). "Structure and Production of a Benthic Insect Assemblage in a Neotropical Stream". Journal of the North American Benthological Society. 17 (4): 443–463. doi:10.2307/1468365. ISSN 0887-3593. JSTOR 1468365. S2CID 85005449.
  5. ^ a b Rosemond, Amy D.; Pringle, Catherine M.; Ramírez, Alonso (1998). "Macroconsumer effects on insect detritivores and detritus processing in a tropical stream". Freshwater Biology. 39 (3): 515–523. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2427.1998.00301.x. ISSN 1365-2427.
  6. ^ Ramírez, Alonso; Paulson, Dennis R.; Esquivel, Carlos (March 2000). "Odonata of Costa Rica: Diversity and checklist of species". Revista de Biología Tropical. 48 (1): 247–254. ISSN 0034-7744.
  7. ^ a b Classen‐Rodríguez, Leticia; Gutiérrez‐Fonseca, Pablo E.; Ramírez, Alonso (2019). "Leaf litter decomposition and macroinvertebrate assemblages along an urban stream gradient in Puerto Rico". Biotropica. 51 (5): 641–651. doi:10.1111/btp.12685. ISSN 1744-7429. S2CID 199638916.
  8. ^ Astudillo, Manuel R.; Novelo-Gutiérrez, Rodolfo; Vázquez, Gabriela; García-Franco, José G.; Ramírez, Alonso (2016-03-01). "Relationships between land cover, riparian vegetation, stream characteristics, and aquatic insects in cloud forest streams, Mexico". Hydrobiologia. 768 (1): 167–181. doi:10.1007/s10750-015-2545-1. ISSN 1573-5117. S2CID 254550450.
  9. ^ Maasri, Alain; et al. (February 2022). "A global agenda for advancing freshwater biodiversity research". Ecology Letters. 25 (2): 255–263. doi:10.1111/ele.13931. hdl:10810/62295. PMID 34854211.
  10. ^ Ramírez, Alonso; Ardón, Marcelo; M. Douglas, Michael; A. S. Graça, Manuel (2015). "Tropical freshwater sciences: an overview of ongoing tropical research". Freshwater Science. 34 (2): 606–608. doi:10.1086/681257. ISSN 2161-9549. S2CID 85054644.
  11. ^ Ramírez, Alonso; Gutiérrez-Fonseca, Pablo E. (2014). "Functional feeding groups of aquatic insect families in Latin America: a critical analysis and review of existing literature". Revista de Biología Tropical. 62: 155–167. doi:10.15517/rbt.v62i0.15785. ISSN 0034-7744. PMID 25189076 – via Scielo.
  12. ^ Boyero, Luz; Pearson, Richard G.; Hui, Cang; Gessner, Mark O.; Pérez, Javier; Alexandrou, Markos A.; Graça, Manuel A. S.; Cardinale, Bradley J.; Albariño, Ricardo J.; Arunachalam, Muthukumarasamy; Barmuta, Leon A. (2016-04-27). "Biotic and abiotic variables influencing plant litter breakdown in streams: a global study". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 283 (1829): 20152664. doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.2664. PMC 4855373. PMID 27122551.
  13. ^ Boyero, Luz; Pérez, Javier; López-Rojo, Naiara; Tonin, Alan M.; Correa-Araneda, Francisco; Pearson, Richard G.; Bosch, Jaime; Albariño, Ricardo J.; Anbalagan, Sankarappan; Barmuta, Leon A.; Beesley, Leah (2021-03-01). "Latitude dictates plant diversity effects on instream decomposition". Science Advances. 7 (13): eabe7860. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abe7860. ISSN 2375-2548. PMC 7997509. PMID 33771867.
  14. ^ Gutiérrez-Fonseca, Pablo E.; Ramírez, Alonso; Pringle, Catherine M.; Torres, Pedro J.; McDowell, William H.; Covich, Alan; Crowl, Todd; Pérez-Reyes, Omar (2020-03-31). "When the rainforest dries: Drought effects on a montane tropical stream ecosystem in Puerto Rico". Freshwater Science. 39 (2): 197–212. doi:10.1086/708808. ISSN 2161-9549.
  15. ^ Ramirez, Alonso; Kwak, Thomas J. "Caribbean fish love catastrophic hurricanes". The Conversation. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  16. ^ "Freshwater Science: Editorial Board". www.journals.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
  17. ^ "Neotropical Biodiversity Editorial Board". www.tandfonline.com. Retrieved 2021-04-27.
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