CV page

Noelia López-García

Noelia López-García

Presentation

I am a PhD student at the Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp. I am keenly interested in forest pathology, and particularly in native and alien invasive forest pathogens that threaten the economic and ecological sustainability of forests. In my project, I will try to elucidate the close relationships between host trees and pathogenic oomycetes and to use this information to develop more sustainable approaches to the control of oomycete diseases of woody plants.

 

Research

I started my PhD project within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Training Network “PROTECTA” (Pathogen Informed Resistance to Oomycete diseases in Ecosystems, Agriculture and Aquaculture) which aims to develop new and innovative ways to control oomycete diseases across the agriculture, environment, forestry and aquaculture sectors. My research focuses on forest Phytophthora pathogens – their ecology, diversity and management in forest and nursery settings.  The research is supervised by Jonas Rönnberg and Laura Grenville-Briggs Didymu (SLU, Alnarp). Some of the projects include:

-        gathering more detailed information about the variation in Phytophthora species diversity along the urban-natural gradient.

-        examining the associated mycobiome in oaks trees growing in these environments.

-        evaluate data for Pest Risk Assessments (PRAs) to develop appropriate phytosanitary strategies for stakeholders.

Background

I completed my BSc and MSc Degree with a major in Environmental and Forestry Engineering at the University of Córdoba (Spain). I continued my graduate education at the University of Lleida (Spain) and at the University of Lisbon (Portugal) where I completed my Double MSc Degree with a major in Mediterranean Forestry and Natural Resources Management (MEDfOR). I am a dynamic and versatile Forest Engineer with research experience in forest pathology, forest ecology and natural resources management, and with extensive international expertise having worked within interdisciplinary teams in organisations such as European Forest Institute (EFI) and Institut National de Recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement (INRAe) among others.

Selected publications

Iryna Matsiakh,  Noelia López-García,  Magdalena Kacprzyk,  Michelle Cleary (2023). Susceptibility of silver birch and black alder to several Phytophthora species isolated from soils in declining broadleaf forests in western Ukraine. Forest Pathology. First published: 19 June 2023

Clara Benavent-Celma; Noelia López-García; Tahmina RUBA; Magdalena E. Ściślak; David Street-Jones; Pieter van West; Stephen Woodward; Johanna Witzell. (2021) Current practices and emerging possibilities for reducing the spread of oomycete pathogens in terrestrial and aquatic production systems in the European Union. Fungal Biology Reviews. Available online 16 November 2021. 

Laetitia Tuffery, Hendrik Davi, Noelia López-García, Eric Rigolot, Florence Jean, Anne Stenger & François Lefèvre. (2020) Adaptive measures for mountain Mediterranean forest ecosystem services under climate and land cover change in the Mont-Ventoux regional nature park, France. Reg Environ Change 21, 12 (2021).