Prize Winners

La Seu d’Urgell (Lleida), 1962. She holds a PhD in Biological Sciences and is a Research Professor at the Institut Mediterrani d’Estudis Avançats (IMEDEA), a joint centre run by the CSIC and the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB).Her main line of research – the study of ecological and evolutionary interactions between plants and animals – began during her PhD, with all fieldwork carried out in the tropical dry forest of Costa Rica as part of the team led by Prof. Daniel H. Janzen, a world-renowned figure in the field of ecology. Since her return to Spain, she has worked in the Balearic Islands (although she has spent short periods in Alaska and South Africa), always on competitive research projects – the vast majority of which she has coordinated – and heading the Terrestrial Ecology laboratory at IMEDEA.Her scientific work is particularly notable for the significant contributions she has made to our knowledge and understanding of biodiversity in island ecosystems. Her main line of research is the ecology and evolution of ecological interactions between plants and animals on islands, although much of her work is also relevant to understanding the functioning of continental ecosystems. Her research focuses primarily on the Balearic Islands, but she has coordinated projects in other archipelagos such as the Canary Islands, the Galápagos and the Seychelles – oceanic islands that constitute important biodiversity hotspots.He has demonstrated a strong ability to secure research funding at both national and international levels, having led a total of 18 national and 3 international projects. He has published some 200 scientific papers; 150 of which concern the reproductive biology of threatened plant species, the evolutionary ecology of plant–animal interactions, and the study of the impact of invasive species on interactions between native species, particularly in pollination and seed dispersal mutualisms. As a general indicator of the quality of his scientific output, one may highlight the five six-year periods recognised by the CNEAI (the most recent in 2014), the 7,514 citations of his work and his h-index of 45. The number of his articles that have been cited at least ten times (i10 index) is 108. He has supervised 15 PhD theses, 8 post-doctoral researchers (both national and international), 10 master’s theses, and has mentored a large number of students on work placements at various stages of their training.In 1996, he received the Bartomeu Darder Prize, awarded by the Societat d’Història Natural de Balears, for his contribution to the study of plant–animal interactions on the Balearic Islands.