María Mercedes Uscola Fernández

I primarily work along two research lines focused on woody plants (both forest and agricultural species): 

1. Functional Plant Ecophysiology: Investigating the mechanisms that enable plants to cope with abiotic stress and/or establish biotic interactions, particularly under global change scenarios such as pollution, biological invasions, and climate change. 
2. Applied Revegetation: Encompassing nursery production of forest plants, the design and evaluation of productive plantations, and ecological restoration projects in forest ecosystems and agroecosystems. This also includes biotechnological solutions such as micropropagation and the use of biostimulants. 

Across all my studies, I analyze plant functional responses to abiotic and biotic factors at multiple scales—from the individual level (physiology, phenology, and morphology) to the ecosystem level (abiotic and biotic interactions). The approach is multidisciplinary, integrating biochemical to ecological processes and involving both field and laboratory techniques (e.g., plant and soil tissue analysis, enzymatic activity, mycorrhizal colonization, and stable isotope tracing for metabolic studies).