Rafael Poyatos López
Senior Researcher at CREAF, I am a member of the Ecophys research group, my research focuses on understanding how vegetation functions across multiple spatial and temporal scales.
I am an Associate Professor in the Ecology Unit at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and a Senior Researcher at CREAF. At CREAF, I am a member of the Ecophys research group and my research focuses on understanding how vegetation functions across multiple spatial and temporal scales. In particular, I am interested in quantifying, understanding, and predicting water and carbon fluxes in forests in response to drought within the context of global change.
My research is based on ecophysiological monitoring at both the individual and ecosystem levels. I have worked across a wide range of ecosystems, including Mediterranean, boreal, and tropical forests, as well as Arctic tundra ecosystems. Since 2015, I have coordinated SAPFLUXNET, a global database of sap flow measurements that has become a reference resource for studying the regulation of water use in forests. This initiative has inspired the development of other global ecophysiological databases, such as PSInet, a global network of plant water status measurements, in which I am also involved.
I currently coordinate FunBosc, a new functional forest monitoring network in Catalonia. The project provides real-time monitoring of tree-level water and carbon dynamics across a network of forest plots. FunBosc is being developed in collaboration with Boscos Resilients, an initiative also led by CREAF.
Throughout my career, I have undertaken research stays at the Universities of Edinburgh and Durham in the United Kingdom, and at Ghent University in Belgium, among others. I am a member of the research network of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and carried out several research stays at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, between 2019 and 2023.
Since 2023, I have served as coordinator of the “Sensing Plant Water Status” Working Group of the International Society for Horticultural Science. I am also a member of the editorial boards of the journals Ecological Processes (2020–2026) and Annals of Forest Science (2024–present).
