Insular and Andean streams

I am interested in understanding the role of habitat templates and disturbance on species distributions.

My primary geographic focus is on island streams where I use diadromous fauna (migrating between marine and freshwaters) as a model group for dissentangling abiotic and biotic controls of inland distribution, abundance, and community assembly throughout spatial hierarchies in streams.

Most of my research has been conducted within the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Program (LUQ-LTER) in Puerto Rico (Greater Antilles) where I have studied the population dynamics and spatial arrangement of diadromous snails (Neritina virginea: Gastropoda: Neritidae) relative to natural (i.e. flooding regime) and anthropogenic (i.e. civil structures, landuse change, water abstraction) disturbances. During my postdoc experience I participated in a BIOCOMPLEXITY PROJECT, a larger effort trying to understand the landscape controls of the entire community of diadromous fauna consisting of fish, shrimp and snails.

I am currently collaborating on a hydroinformatics project for classifying flow regimes at an island scale and further understanding distributions of island's stream fauna, taking advantage of Puerto Rico's USGS extensive discharge gauging network.

In addition to the research in Puerto Rico, I have recently expanded my research to streams at Gorgona Island (a natural national park located at the Eastern Pacific of Colombia) for studying how spatially-hierarchized controls of distribution, abundance, and diversity differ between diadromous (e.g. shrimp and snails) and non-diadromous (e.g. aquatic insects) life cycles. Within a few years, I also expect to provide a better description of the role of ENSO-driven disturbances on stream populations, communities and ecosystem function at the Island.

A secondary focus is on continental streams within the Colombian Andres. I seek to provide a scientific basis for managing riparian zones and to protect instream condition in agricultural and urban landscapes. Along with biodiversity metrics, students in my group looks at ecosystem processes (e.g. litter processing, sedimentation, nutrient fluxes) to identify Best Management Practices. Field work is currently restricted to a network of farms affiliated to the School of Agricultural and Animal Sciences.

Finally, I am also involved in a major stream management and conservation effort in Puerto Rico as part of the UNESCO-sponsored Luquillo Mountain HELP site where hydrological, ecological, social and policy approaches are combined to integrally manage water resources. I hope to apply such an approach in Colombia for managing watersheds heavily deforested by unplanned agriculture and illicit crops in Antioquia State, and watersheds within the Medellin Metropolitan Area.

GEOGRAPHIC EXPERIENCE

Gorgona Island and Utría Sound (Eastern Pacific, Colombia)

Puerto Rico (Greater Antilles, The Caribbean)

Colombian Andes

Uraba (Darien) Region at Antioquia State

Central Cordillera at Antioquia State

Western Cordillera at Valle del Cauca State

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS IN STREAM ECOLOGY

2007. Blanco & Scatena. The spatial arrangement of Neritina virginea (Gastropoda: Neritidae) during upstream migration in a split-channel. River Research and Applications, 23: 235-245

2006. Blanco & Scatena. The distribution of a diadromous gastropod in Puerto Rico streams: hierarchical contribution of river-ocean connectivity, water chemistry, hydraulics and substrate. Journal of the North American Benthological Society, special section on tropical streams. 25(1): 82-98

2005. Blanco & Scatena. Floods, habitat hydraulics and upstream migration of Neritina virginea (Gastropoda: Neritidae) in Northeastern Puerto Rico. Caribbean Journal of Science 41 (1): 55-74.

2003. Blanco. Interannual variation of macroinvertebrate assemblages in a dry-forested stream in Western Cordillera: A role for El Niño and La Niña? Boletin Ecotropica (Ecosistemas Tropicales), 37: 3-30.

2003. Blanco et al. Variation of water chemistry during El Niño 1997-98 and La Niña 1998-99 at Río Pescador, Colombian Southwestern. Actualidades Biológicas, 25 (78): 59-69. (In Spanish).

2002. Blanco. Nitrogen and detritus flux in a dry forested neotropical stream (Río Pescador, Colombian Southwestern). Actualidades Biológicas, 24 (76): 49-58. (In Spanish).

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS IN STREAM MANAGEMENT/CONSERVATION

2008. Lopez-Rodriguez & Blanco-Libreros. Illicit crops in tropical America: Deforestation, landslides, and terrestrial carbon stocks. Ambio 37 (2): 141-143.

2007. Blanco. Editorial: An ecological agenda for assessing the impacts of climate change in Colombia. Actualidades Biológicas, 29 (87): 61-66 (In Spanish).

2007. Scatena, Ortiz-Zayas & Blanco. Helping HELP with limited resources: The Luquillo Experience. In: Proceedings of the International HELP Symposium. Johannesburg, South Africa. Nov. 4-9

2006. Blanco. Native migratory fauna in Puerto Rican streams. En: T. M. López y N. Villanueva (Eds.) Atlas ambiental de Puerto Rico. Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico. (In Spanish)

2005. Goodrich, Stakhiv, Browning-Aiken, Vache, Ortiz-Zayas, Blanco, Scatena, Varady, Bowden & Howland. The HELP (Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy) Experience in North America. In: Proceedings of the EWRI (ASCE Environmental and Water Resources Institute) Watershed Management 2005 Conference, "Managing Watersheds for Human and Natural Impacts: Engineering, Ecological, and Economic Challenges." CD-Rom.