Investigating root ecology and belowground foraging strategies
Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral fellow at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid
I am broadly interested in plant community ecology and plant-plant interactions. In my research, I tend to think about plant interactions from the biophysical and ecophysiological mechanisms governing the ultimate effects that one plant individual will have on a neighbor’s success. I am fascinated by belowground interactions and try to understand how plants compete through their root systems from a game theory approach.
As a non-binary person, I am proud of representing the queer community in STEM
Why was Darwin wrong about sexual selection? I recommend reading Joan Roughgarden’s book Evolution’s Rainbow, Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and People
Selected publications:
Ciro Cabal, Ricardo Martínez-García, Aurora de Castro Aguilar, Fernando Valladares, and Stephen W Pacala, 2020. The exploitative segregation of plant roots. Science
Ciro Cabal, Hannes PT De Deurwaerder, and Silvia Matesanz, 2021. Field methods to study the spatial root density distribution of individual plants. Plant and Soil
Ciro Cabal, 2022. Root Tragedy of the Commons: Revisiting the Mechanisms of a Misunderstood Theory. Frontiers in Plant Science
Contact information:
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Área de Biodiversidad y Conservación
Room 203, Departamental II, Calle Tulipán s/n, 28933 Móstoles, Comunidad de Madrid
ciro.cabal@urjc.es
Ciro Cabal 