{"id":6536,"date":"2024-03-07T19:31:37","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T19:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sfs.local\/staff\/gerardo-avalos-phd\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T19:37:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T19:37:04","slug":"gerardo-avalos-phd","status":"publish","type":"staff","link":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/staff\/gerardo-avalos-phd\/","title":{"rendered":"Gerardo Avalos, PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gerardo Avalos holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in plant physiological ecology and conservation from the University of Missouri at St. Louis. After obtaining his B.Sc. in Biology at the University of Costa Rica, Gerardo began his graduate studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and then he transferred to the University of Missouri \u2013 St. Louis, where he investigated the physiological ecology of lianas using a construction crane to reach the canopy working as a fellow from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. His dissertation examined the light acclimation of tropical lianas to temporal and spatial changes in light availability at the surface the forest canopy. His current research interests include the biomechanics of tropical palms, the carbon sequestration and functional trait ecology of palms, invasive plant ecology, and the functional ecology of hummingbirds including network dynamics across three trophic levels. After serving for 6 years as the Center for Sustainable Development Studies resident ecologist, Gerardo became the Center Director in 2007. He is a Full Professor at the University of Costa Rica where he teaches Botany, Ecology, Natural History, and Multivariate Statistics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gerardo Avalos holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in plant physiological ecology and conservation from the University of Missouri at St. Louis. After obtaining his B.Sc. in Biology at the University of Costa Rica, Gerardo began his graduate studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and then he transferred to the University of Missouri [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5738,"template":"","department":[],"staff-type":[60],"class_list":["post-6536","staff","type-staff","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","staff-type-faculty"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/staff\/6536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/staff"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/staff"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/staff\/6536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=6536"},{"taxonomy":"staff-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/staff-type?post=6536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}