Ignacio Mundo is the holder of the JMA chair of the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS for the next three months until February 3, 2021. He comes from Argentina, where he is an Adjunct Professor in plant biology at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo at Mendoza as well as an Adjunct Researcher of CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina) at the dendrochronology lab IANIGLA (Argentinean Institute of Snow, Glaciers and Environmental Sciences).
Ignacio studied forestry at the Faculty of Agronomical and Forestry Sciences of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina). After completing his forestry degree and during his PhD and post-doc at the dendrochronology lab IANIGLA, he focused on the application of dendrochronological techniques for the study of disturbances in Patagonian forests of Southern Argentina. He has been mainly interested in studying fire regimes related to human influence and climate variability and its consequences on forest dynamics. He has used dendrochronological methods to reconstruct the occurrence of disturbances over the last 500 years, implementing annual resolution from scars and other wood traits. In addition, dendrochronological methods have allowed him to better understand the influence of climatic variability on the growth of Patagonian species and forest decline processes.

Furthermore, he also participated in regional reconstructions of temperature, river streamflow and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), a climate forcing that plays a major role in climate variability in the higher latitudes of South America. During recent years, he has been interested in developing an innovative dendrochronological technique called blue light reflectance (blue intensity) in tree rings as a proxy of wood density. In the framework of this research effort, he has collaborated with European colleagues in an inter-comparison and calibration density study, also adjusting the technique for Patagonian conifers.
In parallel, he has developed interdisciplinary research with Argentinean archaeologists since 2009, developing dendroarchaeological studies on shipwrecks for the first time in Argentina. The purpose of this interdisciplinary research is to provide dendrochronological dating for the construction and provenance of wooden shipwreck remains from the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries found on the South Atlantic coast in the Buenos Aires, Chubut and Tierra del Fuego provinces.
As the holder of the JMA chair of the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS, Ignacio will offer classes on dendrochronology for PhD candidates and he will also collaborate in research activities within the Hazards subcluster during the next months.

--------------------

You can contact him at: iamundo@mendoza-conicet.gob.ar