I am Alejandro Berlinches de Gea, a postdoc at the Laboratory of Nematology,  Wageningen University & Research.  My journey in science started far away from The Netherlands, in Spain, where I was born in 1994 and where I completed my bachelor's and master's degree in Biology and in "Biodiversity in Tropical Areas and Its Conservation" respectively.  For my master thesis, under the supervision of  Sergio Pérez Ortega, I was able to dive into the fascinating world of lichens, and in particular, how habitat fragmentation and history life traits affect the specialization of the interactions between fungi and algae.

After my master, my scientific path continued with lichens as the main study object, but this time as a coordinator of two very cool citizen science projects named LiquenCity and Liquencity 2!. During these exciting two years (although one was characterized by the presence of the coronavirus pandemic), we were able to transmit knowledge about the bioindicator power of lichens on air quality in the schools of Madrid and Barcelona. 

In August 2020 I moved to The Netherlands to do my PhD in the group of Stefan Geisen. At this point I left the lichens behind, to get to know my new friends: Soil microbial predators, especially the always fascinating protists. During my PhD, I am trying to uncover the effect of increasing biodiversity of soil microbial predators on plant performance (mainly biomass, resistance against pathogens or nutrient cycling).  Furthermore, we are interested in deciphering the effect that global change factors have on these amazing predators and their functions in the ecosystem. If everything goes as planned, in January of 2025 I will defend my PhD. Stay tuned for more on lichens, protists and my future!

In this talk, given in at WUR for the Dies Natalis 2024, you can dive deeper into my PhD project research