Sandra Díaz (ecologist) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sandra Díaz
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Dra. Sandra Myrna Díaz
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Sandra Myrna Díaz
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| Nationality | Argentine |
| Alma mater | National University of Córdoba |
| Known for | Plant biodiversity |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Community ecology Plant functional traits Functional diversity Global environmental change Social benefits of biodiversity |
| Institutions | Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal, CONICET & National University of Córdoba University of Sheffield |
Sandra Myrna Díaz (born in 1961) is a very important scientist from Argentina. She studies ecology, which is about how living things interact with each other and their environment. She teaches at the National University of Córdoba.
Sandra Díaz is famous for her work on plants. She looks at their special features, called functional traits. She also studies how plants affect the whole ecosystem, which is like a big natural community. She has won many awards, including the Linnean Medal, for her amazing scientific discoveries. She is one of the most respected scientists in the world.
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Early Life and Education
Sandra Díaz was born in Bell Ville, a town in Córdoba, Argentina. Her parents loved plants, and she grew up surrounded by beautiful gardens. This early love for nature probably helped her choose her career.
She went to the National University of Córdoba to study biology. In 1984, she earned her degree with high honors. She decided she wanted to be an environmental scientist. She continued her studies at the same university, earning her PhD in biological sciences in 1989. For her PhD, she worked with other scientists to understand plant functional traits. Her research helped create new ways for scientists to study how plants affect ecosystems.
Career and Research
After her PhD, Sandra Díaz read a book by a scientist named J. Philip Grime. The book talked about how plants behave and how they affect the environment. This inspired her to work with him. In 1991, she moved to the United Kingdom to join the University of Sheffield.
Plants and Carbon Dioxide
At Sheffield, Sandra Díaz studied how plants react to more carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the air. Carbon dioxide is a gas that can affect our climate. She discovered something important: plants and tiny living things in the soil (called microorganisms) interact in surprising ways.
She found that even with good plant food, fast-growing plants can struggle when there's too much carbon dioxide. At the same time, the microorganisms in the soil grew very well with high carbon dioxide. This showed that plants and soil microbes compete for important nutrients like nitrogen. Her work helped us understand how different plants respond to changes in our atmosphere.
Returning to Argentina
In 1993, Sandra Díaz returned to Argentina. She continued her research on plant traits. She helped write a big report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1995. This report looked at how climate change affects grasslands.
She also started a research group called Núcleo DiverSus. This group focuses on understanding diversity and how to keep our planet healthy.
Understanding Plant Diversity
Sandra Díaz has done a lot to help us understand functional diversity. This means looking at the different ways plants work and what roles they play in an ecosystem. She created new methods to measure how diverse plants are. This helps scientists see how plant diversity affects the environment.
She was the first to create a global picture of how different vascular plants are around the world. She built a huge database with information on thousands of plants. Scientists from many countries helped her with this project.
Her research showed that plants have different "designs." Some plants are good at quickly getting resources, while others are better at saving them. These designs include things like how long their leaves live, how fast they grow, and what kind of wood they have. In 2016, she presented a global map showing these different plant designs and functions.
Connecting Nature and People
Sandra Díaz is also very interested in how people interact with nature. She studies how societies value and use ecosystems. In 2007, she published a paper that explained how to connect plant diversity with human needs. This paper won an important award.
She put her ideas into practice by working with both scientists who study nature and scientists who study people. The social scientists talked to communities to find out what they wanted from their local ecosystems. Then, the ecologists studied the plants and how they helped the environment. This work helped create the idea of "nature's contributions to people," which is now used by important global groups like IPBES.
Sandra Díaz is one of the most-cited environmental scientists in the world. This means many other scientists read and use her work. She has also helped lead major global reports on biodiversity for IPBES.
Other Activities
In 2023, the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, asked Sandra Díaz to join the United Nations' Scientific Advisory Board. This shows how important her advice is on a global scale.
Recognition and Awards
Sandra Díaz has received many honors for her contributions to science. The famous science journal Nature named her one of the "ten people who mattered in science" in 2019. In 2023, she was one of six women chosen by Nature to share their thoughts for International Women's Day.
Awards and Honours
Here are some of the awards Sandra Díaz has received:
- 2008 Ecological Society of America Sustainability Award
- 2008 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) Cozzarelli Prize
- 2009 Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences
- 2013 Platinum Konex Award in Biology and Ecology
- 2014 Bernardo Houssay Award in Biological Sciences
- 2014 Honorary member award of the British Ecological Society (BES)
- 2017 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology
- 2018 Nominated by Nature's 10 as one of five ones to watch in 2019.
- 2019 Princess of Asturias Awards
- 2019 Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS)
- 2019 Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters Gunnerus Award
- 2020 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category "Ecology and Conservation Biology".
- 2022 Elected an international member of the American Philosophical Society
- 2022 Awarded the 13th Kew International Medal by Kew Royal Botanic Gardens
- 2023 Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Medal from the Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon
- 2023 Platinum Konex Award in Ecology and Environmental Sciences
- 2023 Diamond Konex Award in Science and Technology
- 2023 Linnean Medal awarded by the Linnean Society of London
