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Science & Society: Carola's bit of Outreach and Open Science

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Motivation

    I believe that one of my responsibilities as a scientist working in biodiversity is to communicate and raise awareness about the biodiversity crisis, especially by helping younger generations see how they can make a difference. As part of the "A Ponte-USC" program, which connects high schools and scientist, I regularly visit schools to discuss global biodiversity conservation and macroecology. I have also developed several teaching resources about Biodiversity and Biogeography.

    Another important focus of my work is supporting Women in Science, particularly raising awareness about the impact of maternity on scientific careers. I regularly participate in 11F and 8M events and was a co-founder of madresBDV, a now-inactive group for the visibility of scientific contributions made by “mums” in Biodiversity Science. I am also in the "Gender Equality Committe" at both my Research Institute (CRETUS) and the School of Biological Sciences (Facultad de Biología).

    I am also aware that some of our Biology students do not enjoy computing and data analysis, often finding these skills difficult rather than useful or engaging. To help build their confidence in coding, I founded BioR, a Teaching Innovation Group focused on introducing R to undergraduate students with no prior experience and who want to apply it in biodiversity studies.

    I also enjoy creating videos to make our science more accesible and (hopefully) enjoyable for the general public. I believe in Open Science and, by sharing our research this way, I hope to increase its visibility, foster collaboration, and show how cool our studies are! :-D. You can visit our YouTube channel or just have a look at the links below.

Science Communication: Videos

Whiteboard videos: Biogeography

  • R

    Orois-Longarela I, C. Gómez-Rodríguez, A. Baselga and M.O. Lorenzo-Carballa. Why invertebrate Biogeography? YouTube link

  • Orois-Longarela I, C. Gómez-Rodríguez, A. Baselga and M.O. Lorenzo-Carballa. MacroBeetle: Beetles as a model to analyse the effect of ecological niche and dispersal limitation on macroecological patterns YouTube link

  • Orois-Longarela I, C. Gómez-Rodríguez, A. Baselga and M.O. Lorenzo-Carballa. Distance-decay of community similarity YouTube link

  • Orois-Longarela I, C. Gómez-Rodríguez, A. Baselga and M.O. Lorenzo-Carballa. Unified Models of Biological Diversity: Joint analysis of species and genetic variation YouTube link

  • Orois-Longarela I, C. Gómez-Rodríguez, A. Baselga and M.O. Lorenzo-Carballa. Ecology 101: What does "being in equilibrium" mean? YouTube link

  • Orois-Longarela I, C. Gómez-Rodríguez, A. Baselga and M.O. Lorenzo-Carballa. Ecology 101: Ecology 101: What's a species ecological niche? YouTube link

    • Visual abstracts

  • Gómez-Rodríguez and V. Formoso-Freire. Visual abstract of Formoso-Freire et al (2024) Climatic stability predicts the congruence between species abundance and genetic diversity. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.07200 YouTube link

  • Gómez-Rodríguez. Visual abstract of Rodríguez-Pacheco et al (2024) Thermophilization and reshuffling of montane leaf beetle communities over a two‐decade period. https://doi.org/10.1111/jse.13054 YouTube link

  • Gómez-Rodríguez. Visual abstract of Formoso-Freire et al (2023) Predicting the spatio-temporal pattern of range expansion under lack of equilibrium with climate. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110361 YouTube link

    • Women in Science

  • Gómez-Rodríguez C. (2020) "Reflections on Maternity and Academia". Talk at Women in Science-Ecology (WISE) Conference (2020). Youtube link Transcription

  • Organizer of HumboldtDay(2020) event about Women in Biogeography: "Finding ways to feature and support more women in Biogeography" (Organizer as member of @madresBDV community). Youtube link

    • Other videos

  • Gómez-Rodríguez. Working Package 5 of Atlantic-Positive: Assessing the invasion risk of Vespa velutina in Europe (Atlantic-Positive, Interreg) Youtube link

  • Gómez-Rodríguez C. (2020) Assessing historical dispersal limitation using distance-decay approaches. HumboldtDay event. Youtube link

    • Open Science

    Open Access

    RPlease check the publications web and BiBiCI's community at Minerva, the institutional repository at the University of Santiago de Compostela.

    Open Data

  • Baselga A. and C. Gómez-Rodríguez (2024). Leaf beetle community data for 20 Iberian localities and associated genetic barcodes (cox1). Dryad doi:10.5061/dryad.dbrv15f8d

  • Gómez-Rodríguez C., A. Crampton-Platt A., M.J.T.N. Timmermans, A. Baselga and A.P. Vogler (2015) Data from: Validating the power of mitochondrial metagenomics for community ecology and phylogenetics of complex assemblages. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Dryad doi:10.5061/dryad.3rh21

    • Open Software

  • RAs author: R package betapart: Baselga A, Orme CDL, Villéger S, De Bortoli J, Leprieur F., Logez M, Martínez-Santalla S, Martín-Devasa R,Gómez-Rodríguez C, Crujeiras RM. 2023. betapart: Partitioning beta diversity into turnover and nestedness components. R package version 1.6. Available at: http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=betapart

  • As contributor: R package modEvA: Barbosa et al (2013). modEvA: Model Evaluation and Analysis. Function quantReclass, published in Formoso-Freire et al (2025).

    • Open Teaching Resources

    R

    Videos: Teaching Biodiversity with R [GID "Biodiversidad con R"]

  • Gómez-Rodríguez (2025). Primeros pasos en R y R Studio YouTube link

  • Gómez-Rodríguez (2025). Sintaxis en R: Tipos de objetos básicos YouTube link

    • Outreach and teaching resources about Biodiversity and Biogeography

  • Martínez-Santalla, Gómez-Rodríguez C, Baselga A. 2024. Análisis del descenso de la similitud biótica con la distancia espacial (distance-decay) en Ecología de Comunidades y Biogeografía. Nova Acta Científica Compostelana 31: nacc.id9763 [In Spanish] [pdf]

  • Baselga A. and C. Gómez-Rodríguez (2019). Alpha, beta and gamma diversity: measuring differences in biological communities. Nova Acta Científica Compostelana 26: 39-45 [pdf]

  • Sobral M. and C. Gómez Rodríguez (2018). Biodiversidad y funcionamiento de los ecosistemas: mamíferos y carbono. Unidad didáctica [Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: mammals and carbon. Teaching plan]. Publicacións e Intercambio Científico da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. ISBN 978-84-16954- 72-8 [pdf]

    • Other formats of Science Communication and Outreach

  • Gómez-Rodríguez, C., A. Tate, A. Fayet, M. Rueda and M. N. Barrios García Moar (2018). International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Invited post in Animal Ecology in Focus (blog by Journal of Animal Ecology) Blog post

  • Guest at Efervesciencia (04/02/2018), radio program about Science in the RadioGalega Podcast (from minute 13)

  • Gómez-Rodríguez, C. and A.P. Vogler (2017). Fast-Moving Biodiversity Assessment: Are We Already in the Future?. Invited post in Methods Blog (British Ecological Society) Blog post

  • Gómez-Rodríguez, C. (2016). Onde se concentra un maior número de especies e por que?. Setestrelo (CulturaGalega) Web publication

  • Interview with Esturirafi (2016), blog about ecology and sustainable life Interview

  • Díaz Paniagua, C., M. Florencio, C. Gómez Rodríguez , R. Fernández Zamudio, A. Sousa Martín, P. García Murillo, P. Siljestrom, L. Serrano Martín (2014). Las lagunas de Doñana siguen estando en peligro. Quercus 340, 36-44 Link