Dr Patricia Sanchez-Baracaldo

Research summary

I have worked on the evolution of cyanobacteria using a phylogenomic approach and evolutionary theory.  I am now interested in understanding the role that microorganisms have played in regulating the global environment and past climatic events.  My research programme aims to bridge between evolutionary biology and Earth system modelling to explain the early co-evolution of life and the Planet.

For my fellowship research project, I will be focusing on the effect that some cyanobacterial lineages had when colonising marine environments around the Great Oxygenation Event (2.3 billion years ago) during the Paleoproterozoic. 

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Biography

I did my Biology degree at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia. I obtained my PhD from the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. This programme gave me a strong foundation in phylogenetics and evolutionary theory as well as molecular techniques for testing evolutionary hypotheses. I developed my own research project on a recent radiation of high Andean ferns. I addressed innovative theoretical issues in evolutionary biology such as adaptive radiation, convergent evolution, biogeography and heterochrony. I obtained the following awards to fund my PhD research: National Science Foundation - Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant; Vice Chancellor ...

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Links

• Bristol Research Initiative for the Dynamic Global Environment (BRIDGE)

Recent publications

• Becker, S, Sanchez-Baracaldo, P, Singh, A & Hayes, P 2012, ‘Spatio-temporal niche partitioning of closely related picocyanobacteria clades and phycocyanin pigment types in Lake Constance (Germany)’. FEMS Microbiol Ecol.
• Blank, C & Sanchez-Baracaldo, P 2010, ‘Timing of morphological and ecological innovations in the Cyanobacteria – a key to understanding the rise in atmospheric oxygen’. Geobiology, vol 8(1)., pp. 1 - 23

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View complete publications list in the University of Bristol publications system