My name is Ignacio Sevillano and I joined the UCD Forestry team as a Research Fellow in March 2018. I completed a B.Sc. degree in Environmental and Forestry Engineering at the University of Valladolid in 2006. I also received an MSc. degree in Environmental and Forestry Engineering from University of Valladolid in 2010. In 2008/09 I worked on my Masters thesis “Growth and frost hardiness associated to the climate change of some coniferous (Scots pine and Norway spruce) and broadleaved (Silver birch and European aspen) seedlings” at the University of Helsinki, Finland, in collaboration with the Finnish Forest Research Institute, Metla. In 2012 I was awarded a Walsh Fellowship to complete a Ph.D. on forestry at Teagasc, Ashtown, and UCD. My research focused on morphological, phenological and physiological responses of Europen beech and pedunculate oak seedlings to light availability (https://goo.gl/bK195D) and I obtained my Ph.D. in Forestry in 2016.
With Dr. Conor O’Reilly and Dr. Brian Tobin, I am currently working in the tree improvement work package of the FORM project. This is a collaborative project funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine between UCD, Teagasc and Maynooth University which is investigating Forest management research to enhance productivity and pest and disease resistance in key forest species (http://form.ucd.ie/the-project/). My role focuses on investigating the relationships between morphology and physiology in genetically diverse Sitka spruce, the physiological basis of variation in Sitka spruce and the ability of Sitka spruce material to recover from drought, and screening techniques for use in tree selection. The outputs of this research will result in an increased ability to deploy improved Sitka spruce material for commercial use, increasing productivity while at the same time improving the ability of the material to cope with adverse conditions (e.g. climate change, diseases, etc.)
