Raúl Orihuela Rivero

Raúl Orihuela Rivero holds a degree in Biology and a master’s degree in Terrestrial Biodiversity and Island Conservation, both obtained at the University of La Laguna. He is currently working on his doctoral thesis within the iEcoEvoLab research group, where he studies the processes of biotic homogenization in the flora of oceanic islands. This work, funded by the Ministry of Universities through the University Teacher Training Program (FPU), focuses on analyzing both extinction processes in Macaronesia and invasion dynamics in a model archipelago such as the Canary Islands. His research interests are particularly centered on taxonomy and evolutionary processes on islands. As a result, he focuses much of his study on grasses, a key group in the Canary Islands due to their high number of invasive species and the presence of numerous cryptogenic species that are challenging to identify. To this end, he adopts an integrative approach that combines morphological methods with cutting-edge genomic techniques.

In parallel, he complements this research activity by studying the diversity of terrestrial isopods in the Canary Islands, participating in and leading several studies in collaboration with researchers from the IPNA-CSIC and the Department of Zoology at the University of La Laguna. These studies aim to update and expand the existing knowledge of these arthropods in the archipelago.