Work experience:

• FuEDEI Researcher (2012 to date)
• CONICET researcher (2014 – to date)
• USDA/ARS/SABCL Researcher (1995-2000, 2002-2014)
• USDA/ARS/SABCL Research technician (1994-1995)

Research focus:

My main interests in research are invasive and pest ants, focusing on ant invasions, their multidisciplinary study, impact on wildlife and human populations, and the use of natural enemies for their control.

We seek to the understand the interactions among invasive ants, their natural enemies (pathogens, parasitoids and parasites), competitor ants and the environment in their area of natural distribution in southern South America in order to decrease their ecological and economic impacts and their potential worldwide dispersion in a context of climate change.

The investigation is oriented towards understanding evolutionary, ecological and historical processes responsible for the current patterns of ant distribution and diversity observed in nature using biogeographic, systematic, ecological, physiological and genetic approaches.

I am mainly focused on the study of highly invasive ants and pest ants that are native of southern South America, as well as ant diversity in the different ecoregions of Argentina where all these invasive ants co-occur, and in understanding the evolution of adaptive traits in the life history of these species related to their successful invasions; and the ecological, genetic and physiological adaptations of these species, so widely distributed in southern South America.

Participation in projects:

• Atta, Acromyrmnex spp. and Amoimyrmex spp (Hormigas cortadoras de hojas)
• Radiación gamma para el control de hormigas invasoras y/o plaga
• Solenopsis invicta y S. richteri (hormigas de fuego)
• Wasmannia auropunctata (pequeña hormiga de fuego)
• Nylanderia fulva (hormiga loca rojiza)
• Linepithema humile (Hormiga argentina)
• Hermetia Illucens (Mosca soldado negra).