Consortium > INIA

Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria

Organization short name: INIA
acronym:
web page: www.inia.es/inia

Description of the organization

INIA was founded in 1971 as the primary public research institution devoted to agricultural and forestry research in Spain. It is part of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education, holding three main research centers and four research departments. The Center involved in the project is the Center for Forest Research (CIFOR) which is devoted to the development and implementation of scientific-based tools for sustainable ecosystem management.

Expertise and experience of the organization

The Center for Forest Research (CIFOR) and specifically the Department of Resources and Forest Systems has a wide experience in the implementation of national programs on sustainable forest management. The department integrates genomics, ecophysiological and ecological knowledge to develop scientific tools ranging from delineation of regions of provenance to defining landscape biodiversity indicators to quantifying forest ecosystem carbon sinks. INIA is the national representative of the EUFORGEN program in Spain, and the coordinator of two national programs in the scope of the National Strategy of Conservation and sustainable use of forest resources.

Selected reference projects

  • EVOLTREE: Evolution of trees as drivers of terrestrial biodiversity. 016322-GOCE. UE Network of Excellence. PI: Ricardo Alía (INIA).
  • TREESNIPS . QLK3-CT2002-01973. Developing Single Nucleotide Polymorphic. EU. University of Oulu y Finnish Forest Research,Institute (Finland), INRA (France), UNIUD (Italy), INIA (Spain), University of Uppsala (Sweden), SCRI, (UK). PI: MªTeresa Cervera (INIA).
  • ALTERNET. Network of Excellence "A long-term biodiversity, ecosystem and awareness research network" (ALTER net). EU-VI. PI: Terry Park.
  • From individuals to ecosystem in plant and intertidal communities. Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. PI: Dr. Simon A. Levin / Dr. Stephen W. Pacala.

Key scientific / technical personnel

Dr. Miguel A. Zavala, a staff researcher at CIFOR, is a forest engineer from Polytechnic University of Madrid (1993) and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University (EEUU) in 2000. Following a research stay at the Carbon Modelling Consortium at Princeton Environmental Institute he was associate professor at University of Vigo and University of Alcalá (Spain). His main interests are the development of mathematical and computational models of forest dynamics, the connection between models and data, and the integration of models into decision-making tools. He has a wide experience in parameterizing ecological models with forest inventory data and has participated in several national, US and EU research programs (e.g. STEP, ALPHA, ALTERNET).

Selected recent relevant publications

Urbieta IR , Zavala MA, Marañón T, Human and non-human determinants of forest composition in southern Spain: evidence of shifts towards cork oak dominance due to last century management. Journal of Biogeography 35(9), 1688 - 1700, 2008. link to publisher

Montoya D, Rodríguez MA, Zavala MA, Hawkings B. Glacial dynamics and contemporary richness patterns of holarctic trees. Ecography 30(2), 173-182, 2007. link to publisher

Zavala MA, Angulo O, Bravo R, López-Marcos JC, An analytical model of stand dynamics as a function of tree growth, mortality and recruitment: the shade tolerance-stand structure hypothesis revisited. Journal of Theoretical Biology 244(3), 440–450, 2007. link to publisher

Purves D, Zavala MA, Ogle K, Prieto F, Rey J, Environmental Heterogeneity, bird-mediated directed dispersal, and oak woodland dynamics in Mediterranean Spain. Ecological monographs 77(1), 77-97, 2007. link to publisher

Valladares F, Sánchez D, Zavala MA, Quantitative estimation of phenotypic plasticity: bridging the gap between the evolutionary concept and its ecological applications. Journal of Ecology 94(6), 1103–1116, 2006. link to publisher