Xavier’s research
The Aquatic Ecology of Environmental Change
- 🔭Ramon y Cajal researcher (Eligible Tenure-Track researcher, Ministry of Science and Innovation, 2025-2030, Ref: RYC2023-045115-I)
- 🏦Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), Spain
- 📬email: xavier.benito(at)irta.cat
My research interests lie at the interface of limnology, palaeoecology and biogeography on questions related to how dynamics between biotic communities and their physical environment change through time. I’m fascinated in using aquatic communities such as diatoms and foraminifera with complementary geochemical and hydrological reconstructions from aquatic ecosystems that receive the influence of catchment, and climate and anthropogenic forcings across the aquatic continuum: from high-mountain lakes to river deltas.
As a biologist and environmental scientist by training, I’m also motivated by fundamental and applied questions of socio-ecological systems, particularly how human legacies explain whole-ecosystem trajectories: lake-basin and coastal-marine environments. I use data across spatial (local to continental) and temporal (decades to millennia) scales, involving quantitative multivariate analyses, geospatial and time series modelling.
I’m deeply interested in fostering open data, facilitate the exchange of ideas and skill sets, and team science to inform inform current climatic and sustainability issues using paleosciences. I’m co-leading two international research projects (see pSESYNTH and Oligotrend) in which I strive to apply these community mobilization aspects.
I am always keen to collaborate in topics of freshwater and transitional communities, metacommunities and biogeography, and paleolimnology. Please feel free to reach out if you like to explore any options.
Keywords Biogeography Diatoms Benthic foraminifera aquatic paleoecology Quantitative time series modelling Ecological resilience Data-driven synthesis