Since the day my mother gave me a “zoological park” toy I have always been in love with animals. This passion led me to enroll in the Biological Science bachelors program at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. I was very interested from the very early days of my bachelor in Evolution, particularly in the study of macroevolutionary patterns and processes. My first contact with palaeontology was during field work at the Cretaceous fossil site of Las Hoyas (Cuenca, Spain) and at different Miocene fossil sites, including Somosaguas and Cerro de los Batallones (Madrid, Spain).
My research focuses on using macroecological, macroevolutionary and palaeoenvironmental approaches to study the processes and mechanisms underlying changes in and the evolution of mammalian faunas and their ecosystems during the Cenozoic.
Currently I am doing my PhD at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. My Phd uses extensive fossil information (occurrence data and trait information for over 2,000 taxa) at the species level in an integrative analytical framework to qualitatively evaluate the contribution of diversity dependence, competition, morphospace evolution, and extrinsic drivers (climate and productivity) to the diversification patterns of three orders of large terrestrial herbivores (Artiodactyla, Perissodactyla and Proboscidea) through the Cenozoic.
Contact: fernando.blanco@mfn.berlin
You can read all my publications at:
amniota.org 