EDUCATION

2014 - to date

PhD in Agroecology, Maranhão State University, São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil.

2012 - 2014

Msc. in Agroecology, Maranhão State University, São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil.

2007 - 2011

Bsc in Environmental Engineering, CEUMA University, São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil

 

CURRENT RESEARCH TOPICS AND INTERESTS

Research theme: Land Use Changes and Aboveground-Belowground Interactions

Impacts of land-use on microbial community composition and function and on soil quality in Maranhão State, eastern periphery of Amazonia

With a multidisciplinary approach, my focus is to compare shifting cultivation slash-and-burn (fields and secondary vegetation at different ages and states of degradation) with agroforestry systems (traditional and 'modern', simple and complex) and with mature rainforests as a control. We explore relationships between vegetation biomass and composition, the litter-layer, soil physico-chemical characteristics, and the taxonomic and functional composition of the microbial community in soil and rhizosphete in the eastern periphery of Amazonia, looking for aboveground-belowground interactions. The estimate of the functional diversity and composition of microbial communities is via next generation sequencing of 16S rRNA gene of bacteria and archaea, of 18S rRNA gene for beneficial fungi (arbuscular micorrizas and Basidiomycetes decomposers), as well as functional genes of the nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon cycles. We evaluate the impacts of different land-use and land-cover on the taxonomical and functional microbial composition of the soil, in interaction and co-variation with vegetation and litter biomass and floristics, and the physico-chemistry of topsoils in the eastern periphery of Amazonia (north-central Maranhão and southern Pará States). 

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