Academic profile
Ecology, biodiversity and environmental change.
A research trajectory built around measuring biodiversity rigorously, understanding the processes that reshape it, and connecting ecological evidence to conservation and environmental decisions.
Giovanni Bacaro is Associate Professor of Environmental and Applied Botany at the Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, where he coordinates the Plant Community Ecology and Diversity research group. He has held his current position since 2015 and obtained the Italian National Scientific Qualification as Full Professor in Botany in 2017.
His scientific trajectory connects plant community ecology, biodiversity measurement and sampling theory with landscape ecology, ecological connectivity, functional and phylogenetic diversity, ecosystem services, invasive species, environmental impact assessment and conservation. A growing part of this work integrates field observations with GIS, UAVs, LiDAR, imaging spectroscopy, satellite Earth observation, machine learning and ecological modelling.
Across these lines of research, the common objective is to understand how ecological systems respond to environmental change and to anticipate future trajectories where possible. The resulting evidence is used to support biodiversity conservation, restoration, monitoring, territorial planning and science-based environmental decisions.
His academic activity also includes international cooperation, scientific coordination of European and development-cooperation projects, research evaluation, science–policy interfaces and advanced teaching in ecology, statistics, GIS and remote sensing.
