general interests
The future of many species and ecological processes is closely tied to land use and climate change, their long-term persistence depends on environmental factors acting from local to global scales. Through science we understand those links, now we need to capitalize on that knowledge and transform it into action.
I am interested in projects that not only try to unravel biodiversity response to changes in the environment but also lead to real-world change through policy and conservation.
I want to contribute to the development of sustainable management strategies that balance biodiversity and ecosystem services with human activities. I am passionate about linking biodiversity research outcomes with conservation practice and policymaking.
Current projects
Science-Policy interfase
I am currently involved in a project called B-cubed, which aims to build biodiversity data cubes and provide easily accessible workflows to calculate policy-relevant indicators.
I am leading a task focused on aligning B-cubed products with international biodiversity agreements, and my initial goal is to determine how B-cubed can support the development or accessibility of workflows and data for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
As Scientific Coordinator for the IPBES Data and Knowledge Unit, I support the IPBES global and thematic assessments by facilitating the integration of a wide variety of biodiversity data into the assessments in an open and reproducible way.
IPBES Data and Knowledge Unit is hosted at Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, where I work as a researcher analyzing the use of indicators on biodiversity change and ecosystem services in IPBES assessments.
biodiversity standards
I lead a task group at the Biodiversity Information Standards organization to standardize biodiversity inventory reporting. Inventories (records of species at a specific place and time) offer high-quality data for characterizing biodiversity and its change. However, its reliability depends on knowing about the inventory processes (survey methods, scope) which is often unreported. I am working with biodiversity experts, bioinformaticians and researchers worldwide to provide the community with a solution to share and use inventory data improving biodiversity data discoverability, interoperability and re-use.
The Humboldt Extension for Ecological Inventories was ratified as an Extension to Darwin Core and is now available to use and share biodiversity data.
environmental consultancy
We created CampoGis to help food producers measure the biodiversity and environmental state of their lands and co-develop solutions to optimize their products without compromising nature. With the common belief that smart monitoring and strategic spatial planning are key tools to produce goods without altering the ecosystem’s health, CampoGis was born to inspire and empower people to transition towards a just and environmentally sustainable business.
recent projects
mapping biodiversity globally
Spatial species information is rapidly growing and so is the need for effective integration and synthesis of biodiversity records to inform research, conservation planning, and policy. Map of Life addresses this need by assembling and integrating different data sources and types describing species distributions worldwide.
As lead data manager at Map of Life, I managed data acquisition, curation, and use as well as several individual projects.
I coordinated the development of Biodiversity dashboards for Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru in partnership with the Field Museum. This online tool provides land managers with actionable information about the biodiversity in the places they work. I collaborated in the development of global biodiversity indices in support of GEOBON EBVs and Half-Earth Map, and I carried out global and regional species distribution models to identify areas of priority for conservation.
projecting biodiversity response to future land use scenarios
As a postdoctoral fellow in UNSAM, I analyzed how biodiversity would respond to future land use scenarios in a wetland region in central Argentina. I explored scenarios of bird functional diversity under varying levels of land use intensity to provide relevant information for landscape planning which is urgently needed in the study area. This project was carried out in Paraná River wetlands where cattle ranching and afforestation have intensified and expanded over natural wetlands reducing wetland cover by a 35% (Sica et al. 2016).
I developed 3 potential land use scenarios based on (1) business as usual (default), (2) controlled and planned land use change as a result of the application of a wetland use policy, and (3) accelerated land use change due to the intensification of cattle ranching and silvopastoral practices.
I will model bird functional biodiversity in each one and carry out trade-off analysis among bird diversity and human activities to detect conflicts and synergies and delineate sustainable strategies to balance both.
Birds' response to land use change in Argentina
As a doctoral student working in the environmental management area of the National Institute of Agriculture Technology (INTA), I analyzed land use change and its effect on bird assemblages and wetland-dependent species in Paraná River wetlands.
First, I quantified land use changes in the Paraná River Delta from 1999 to 2013 and identified socio-economic and environmental factors that determined wetland conversion.
Then, I analyzed the response of a set of representative wetland bird species to a gradient of landscape structure accounting for different levels of wetland conversion (Sica et al. in press). I also analyzed the temporal response of bird assemblages to land use change comparing bird assemblages from recent bird surveys (self-collected) against bird surveys carried out in the 90s (Sica et al. 2018).
While developing my PhD thesis I collaborated in other projects from INTA where we studied biodiversity response (mammals, birds and anurans) to different processes of land use change in Pampa, Espinal and Chaco regions in Argentina (e.g. Calamari et al. 2018).
Biodiversity and landscape characteristics in antarctic wetlands
I am currently characterizing Antarctic wetlands using high-resolution remotely-sensed data and biodiversity data collected in Antarctic Peninsula. I am collaborating on a project from the Argentinean Antarctic Institute where we analyze Antarctic wetlands as biodiversity hotspots to include them in the RAMSAR convention for the conservation and wise use of wetlands. I went on a field trip to Antarctic Peninsula for 3 months collecting vegetation and meiofauna species (mainly arthropods) from different wetland types (ponds, flooded moss, etc.). Crossing this field data with remotely sensed products like NDVI will allow us to detect wetlands in inaccessible areas of the Antarctic Peninsula as well as serve as a baseline for future studies analyzing the effects of climate change on Antarctic wetlands and their biodiversity.
