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Sara Varela
PeerJ Editor, Author & Reviewer
570 Points

Contributions by role

Author 100
Preprint Author 35
Reviewer 35
Editor 400

Contributions by subject area

Biodiversity
Conservation Biology
Ecology
Evolutionary Studies
Zoology
Biogeography
Environmental Sciences
Coupled Natural and Human Systems
Genetics
Plant Science
Computational Biology
Statistics

Sara Varela

PeerJ Editor, Author & Reviewer

Summary

I am working on Pleistocene mammal extinctions. Co-developer of R packages to download data from open access databases (rAvis and paleobioDB), and team member of www.ecoClimate.org, an open access repository to access climatic data for the past, present and future.

Anthropology Biodiversity Biogeography Bioinformatics Computational Biology Conservation Biology Coupled Natural & Human Systems Ecology Ecosystem Science Evolutionary Studies Mathematical Biology Paleontology Statistics Zoology

Editing Journals

PeerJ - the Journal of Life & Environmental Sciences

Work details

Postdoctoral Researcher

Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions - und Biodiversitätsforschung
I started my research career as a field palaeontologist, working in mainly in Gran Dolina, Atapuerca, Spain, but also collaborating in other excavations, such as Pinilla del Valle (Late Pleistocene) and Maltravieso (Late Pleistocene) in Spain, El caño (Pleistocene) in Uruguay or Dmanisi (Plio-Pleistocene) in the Republic of Georgia. I completed my PhD at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC) in Madrid, Spain, under the supervision of Jorge M. Lobo. We analyzed the spotted hyena extinction event in Europe, relating this extinction to the past glacial-interglacial cycles. After that, I worked as a postdoc at the University of Castilla La-Mancha, in Toledo, studying the effects that current global warming could cause on endangered plant species in Central Spain with Federico Fernández. Then I moved to Prague to continue my work on Pleistocene extinctions joining a European research project with David Storch. Currently, I am working at the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Spain, together with Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, and collaborating with Faysal Bibi and Johannes Müller at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. I have 3 main research themes: 1) Analyze extinction events and faunal temporal turnover. 2) Improve the methods that we use to study spatial ecology (mainly ecological niche models). 3) Program new open tools to get data from internet open access databases. I believe that teaching how to program is fundamental and that it is a key step for building the next generation of ecologists. Thus, I regularly teach R programming and spatial stats. I have more than 260 hours of teaching experience in different countries, like Spain, Venezuela, Czech Republic and Brazil.

Websites

  • Google Scholar
  • GitHub
  • ResearchGate
  • ecoClimate

PeerJ Contributions

  • Articles 1
  • Preprints 1
  • Edited 4
  • Reviewed 1
July 28, 2016
The potential effects of climate change on amphibian distribution, range fragmentation and turnover in China
Ren-Yan Duan, Xiao-Quan Kong, Min-Yi Huang, Sara Varela, Xiang Ji
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2185 PubMed 27547522
January 26, 2016 - Version: 1
The potential effects of climate change on amphibian distribution, range fragmentation and turnover in China
Ren-Yan Duan, Xiao-Quan Kong, Min-Yi Huang, Sara Varela, Xiang Ji
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1681v1

Academic Editor on

May 16, 2017
Phylogenetic climatic niche conservatism and evolution of climatic suitability in Neotropical Angraecinae (Vandeae, Orchidaceae) and their closest African relatives
Marta Kolanowska, Elżbieta Grochocka, Kamil Konowalik
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3328 PubMed 28533976
December 22, 2016
An extensive comparison of species-abundance distribution models
Elita Baldridge, David J. Harris, Xiao Xiao, Ethan P. White
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2823 PubMed 28028483
April 28, 2016
Genetic and demographic recovery of an isolated population of brown bear Ursus arctos L., 1758
Elena G. Gonzalez, Juan C. Blanco, Fernando Ballesteros, Lourdes Alcaraz, Guillermo Palomero, Ignacio Doadrio
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1928 PubMed 27168963
July 9, 2015
Relative availability of natural prey versus livestock predicts landscape suitability for cheetahs Acinonyx jubatus in Botswana
Hanlie E.K. Winterbach, Christiaan W. Winterbach, Lorraine K. Boast, Rebecca Klein, Michael J. Somers
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1033 PubMed 26213646

Signed reviews submitted for articles published in PeerJ Note that some articles may not have the review itself made public unless authors have made them open as well.

September 13, 2016
Lowland tapir distribution and habitat loss in South America
Jose Luis Passos Cordeiro, José M.V. Fragoso, Danielle Crawshaw, Luiz Flamarion B. Oliveira
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2456 PubMed 27672509