I am interested in understanding socio-ecological land systems and how their changes due to anthropogenic forces, impact on the socio-environmental wellbeing of rich biocultural agricultural regions. I include the role of policies and transboundary influences in my studies and thus geopolitics and the history of regions are key in my work.

I studied a Bachelor of Environmental Sciences in Spain, I did a master on Geo-information in the Netherlands and after working for a couple of year in Australia as a data analyst I ended up doing my doctoral studies at the Geography Department of Humboldt University. I spent two years in Argentina as a postdoc and returned back to Germany to accomplish another two years of postdoc at Freie Universität, where since March 2022 I hold the chair of “Modelling Human-Environment Interactions” of the Geography Institute.

I am the coordinator of the Global Land Program “Socio-Ecological Land Systems of Latin America” (website).

Publications and Research by María Piquer-Rodríguez (Selection 2018-2026)

1. Andrade-Díaz, M. S., Baldi, G., Fassnacht, F. E., Burton, J., Bravo, S. J., Coria, R. D., Ledesma, R., Cowper-Coles, P., Fernández, P. D., Marás, G. A., Urdampilleta, C. M., & Piquer-Rodríguez, M. (2026). Drivers of woody encroachment in Dry Chaco grasslands: Grazing, fire, aridity and the value of local knowledge. Ecosystems and People 22(1), 2644315.
   
   
2. Montti, L., Gasparri, N. I., Trumper, A., Amicone, C., Anticoli, A., Burns, S. L., Casertano, S., Eleuterio, A., Gennerich, M.-J., Giessen, L., González, M. V., Santos Silva, M., Vázquez, F., Velazco, S. J. E., Yanosky, A., Zurita, G. A., & Piquer-Rodríguez, M. (2026). Disentangling conservation asymmetries through socio-economic transboundary factors across the Alto Paraná Atlantic Forest of South America. People and Nature.
   
   
3. Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Asef, E., Reitzug, S., & Hübner, A. (2026). Using "data agreements" in universities to clarify research data rights of use. EGU General Assembly 2026, EGU26-5023. Copernicus Meetings.
   
   
4. Bonatti, M., Ollendorf, F., Schröter, B., Baldivieso, C., Medina, L., Bellingrath-Kimura, S. D., Piquer-Rodriguez, M., Busse, M., Matzdorf, B., Helming, K., Rogga, S., Yazdanpanah, M., & Sieber, S. (2026). Agricultural living labs: Bridging theory and practice through transformative learning. The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension, 1–23.
   
   
5. Torrella, S., Baumann, M., Pratzer, M., Aguiar, S., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Ginzburg, R., Gavier Pizarro, G., & Kuemmerle, T. (2026). Quantifying the spatial footprint of agriculture-driven edge effects in a global deforestation hotspot. Global Change Biology 32(2), e70737.
   
   
6. Anticoli, A., von Below, J., Eleuterio, A. A., Orué Pozzo, A., Trumper, A., & Piquer-Rodríguez, M. (2025). Spatial land conflict typologies in the Atlantic Forest of South America. Journal of Rural Studies 120, 103847.
   
   
7. Núñez Montellano, M. G., Sandoval-Salinas, M. L., Zelaya, P. V., Lomáscolo, S., Fontanarrosa, G., Rodríguez, D., Chillo, V., Aschero, V., Schroeder, N. M., Brailovsky, V., Álvarez, M. A., Plaza Behr, M. C., Lorenzo Pisarello, M. J., Fanjul, M. E., Piquer Rodríguez, M., Choque, A., & Martínez-Gálvez, M. F. (2025). Crónica de una desigualdad: El caso de la ecología en la Argentina. Ecología Austral 35.
   
   
8. Himmelsbach, C., Nanni, A. S., Ypa, M. A., & Piquer-Rodríguez, M. (2025). Spatial characterization of human–puma interactions in social-ecological land systems of Argentina. Global Ecology and Conservation, e03953.
   
   
9. Lomáscolo, S. B., Novillo, A., Pero, E. J. I., Sandoval-Salinas, M. L., Núñez Montellano, M. G., Fontanarrosa, G., & Piquer-Rodríguez, M. (2025). Avanzar sobre suelo resbaladizo: Desafíos que enfrentan las ecólogas relacionados con el trabajo de campo, los viajes y el entorno laboral. Ecología Austral 35(2-bis), 869–878.
   
   
10. Del Giorgio, O., Fontanarrosa, G., Lomáscolo, S., & Piquer-Rodríguez, M. (2025). Systemic sexism in academia: An early-career viewpoint. BioScience 75(8), 612–614.
    
    
11. Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Reitzug, S., Hübner, A., & Asef, E. (2025). Student data agreement.
    
    
12. Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Reitzug, S., Hübner, A., & Asef, E. (2025). Research data management plan of the Modelling Human–Environment Interactions Research Group.
    
    
13. Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Reitzug, S., Hübner, A., & Asef, E. (2025). Researcher data agreement.
    
    
14. Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Aragón, R., Pacheco, S., Malizia, S., & Zunino, H. (2024). Co-production of sustainability indicators in a vulnerable South American agricultural frontier. Regional Environmental Change 24(4), 171.
    
    
15. Carilla, J., Grau, R., Acosta, O. O., Malizia, A., Ceballos, S., Llambí, L. D., et al. (2024). ROSA: An Andean network of social–ecological observatories. Mountain Research and Development 44(4), A1–A10.
    
    
16. Fontanarrosa, G., Zarbá, L., Aschero, V., Dos Santos, D. A., et al. (2024). Over twenty years of publications in ecology: Over-contribution of women reveals a new dimension of gender bias. PLoS ONE 19(9), e0307813.
    
    
17. Levers, C., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Gollnow, F., Baumann, M., Camino, M., et al. (2024). What is still at stake in the Gran Chaco? Social-ecological impacts of alternative land-system futures in a global deforestation hotspot. Environmental Research Letters 19(6), 064003.
    
    
18. Lomáscolo, S. B., Sandoval-Salinas, M. L., Novillo, A., Fontanarrosa, G., et al. (2024). Academic career in ecology: Effect of gender, caregiving labor, and the working environment. Forest Ecology and Management 560, 121801.
    
    
19. Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Friis, C., Andriatsitohaina, R. N. N., Boillat, S., Roig-Boixeda, P., Cortinovis, C., Geneletti, D., Ibarrola-Rivas, M., Kelley, L. C., Llopis, J. C., Mack, E. A., Nanni, A. S., Zaehringer, J. G., & Henebry, G. M. (2023). Global shocks, cascading disruptions, and (re-)connections: Viewing the COVID-19 pandemic as concurrent natural experiments to understand land system dynamics. Landscape Ecology 38, 1147–1161.
    
    
20. Andrade-Díaz, M. S., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., & Baldi, G. (2023). Conservation opportunities for threatened paleochannel grasslands in the South American Dry Chaco. Journal for Nature Conservation 71, 126306.
    
    
21. Isaac, R., Albrecht, E., Felipe-Lucia, M. R., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Winkler, K. J., et al. (2023). Governing the co-production of nature's contributions to people: The road ahead. Advances in Ecological Research 69, 1–15.
    
    
22. Zarbá, L., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Boillat, S., Levers, C., Gasparri, I., Anderson, L. O., Araoz, E., Arima, E., Batistella, M., Calderón-Loor, M., Echeverria, C., Gonzalez-Roglich, M., Jobbágy, E., Mathez-Stiefel, S.-L., Ramirez-Reyes, C., Pacheco, A., Vallejos, M., Young, K., & Grau, R. (2022). Mapping and characterization of socio-ecological land systems of South America. Ecology and Society 27(2):27.
    
    
23. Grau, H. R., Gasparri, N. I., Aráoz, E., Aide, T. M., & Piquer-Rodríguez, M. (2022). Landscape divergence associated with international borders and economic asymmetries. Austral Ecology 32.
    
    
24. Grau, H. R., Gasparri, N. I., Aráoz, E., Aide, T. M., & Piquer-Rodríguez, M. (2022). Diferencias en el paisaje asociadas a límites internacionales y asimetrías económicas. Ecología Austral 32(02 bis).
    
    
25. Pötzschner, F., Baumann, M., Gasparri, N. I., Conti, G., Loto, D., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., & Kuemmerle, T. (2022). Ecoregion-wide, multi-sensor biomass mapping highlights a major underestimation of dry forests carbon stocks. Remote Sensing of Environment 269, 112849.
    
    
26. Lomáscolo, S. B., Novillo, A., Sandoval-Salinas, M. L., Fontanarrosa, G., et al. (2022). Academic performance of ecologists is gender-biased: Effect of caregiving responsibilities and the working environment.
    
    
27. Levers, C., Romero-Muñoz, A., Baumann, M., de Marzo, T., Fernández, P. D., Gasparri, N. I., Gavier-Pizarro, G., le Polain de Waroux, Y., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Semper-Pascual, A., & Kuemmerle, T. (2021). Agricultural expansion and the ecological marginalization of forest-dependent people. PNAS 118(44), e2100436118.
    
    
28. Law, E., Macchi, L., Baumann, M., Decarre, J., Gavier-Pizarro, G., Levers, C., Mastrangelo, M. E., Murray, F., Müller, D., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Torres, R., Wilson, K. A., & Kuemmerle, T. (2021). Fading opportunities for mitigating agriculture-environment trade-offs in a South American deforestation hotspot. Biological Conservation 262.
    
    
29. Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Gasparri, N. I., Zarbá, L., Aráoz, E., & Grau, H. R. (2021). Land systems' asymmetries across transnational ecoregions in South America. Sustainability Science 16, 1519–1538.
    
    
30. López-Felices, B., Aznar-Sanchez, J. A., Velasco-Muñoz, J. F., & Piquer-Rodríguez, M. (2020). Contribution of irrigation ponds to the sustainability of agriculture: A review of worldwide research. Sustainability 12(13).
    
    
31. Macchi, L., Decarre, J., Goijman, A. P., Mastrangelo, M., Blendinger, P. G., Gavier-Pizzaro, G. I., Murray, F., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Semper-Pascual, A., & Kuemmerle, T. (2020). Trade-offs between biodiversity and agriculture are moving targets in dynamic landscapes. Journal of Applied Ecology 57(10).
    
    
32. Nanni, S., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., et al. (2020). Threats to conservation associated to land-use in the terrestrial ecoregions of Argentina. Ecología Austral 30: 304–320.
    
    
33. Nuñez-Regueiro, M., Branch, L. C., Derlindati, E., Gasparri, I., Marinaro, S., Nanni, S., Núñez Godoy, C., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Soto, J. R., & Tálamo, A. (2020). Open Standards for Conservation as a tool for linking research and conservation agendas in complex socio-ecological systems. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 44: 6–15.
    
    
34. Aznar-Sánchez, J. A., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Velasco-Muñoz, J. F., & Manzano-Agugliaro, F. (2019). Worldwide research trends on sustainable land use in agriculture. Land Use Policy 87.
    
    
35. Torrella, S. A., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Levers, C., Ginzburg, R., Gavier-Pizarro, G., & Kuemmerle, T. (2018). Multiscale spatial planning to maintain forest connectivity in the Argentine Chaco in the face of deforestation. Ecology and Society 23(4):37.
    
    
36. Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Baumann, M., Butsic, V., Gasparri, N. I., Gavier Pizarro, G., Volante, J. N., Müller, D., & Kuemmerle, T. (2018). The potential impact of economic policies on future land-use conversions in Argentina. Land Use Policy 79: 57–67.
    
    
37. Nolte, C., Gobbi, B., Le Polain de Waroux, Y., Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Butsic, V., & Lambin, E. F. (2018). Challenges in attributing avoided deforestation to policies and actors: Lessons from provincial forest zoning in the Argentine Dry Chaco. Ecological Economics 150: 346–352.
    
    
38. Piquer-Rodríguez, M., Butsic, V., Gärtner, P., Macchi, L., Baumann, M., Gasparri, N. I., Gavier Pizarro, G., Volante, J. N., & Kuemmerle, T. (2018). Drivers of agricultural land-use change in the Argentine Pampas and Chaco regions. Applied Geography 91: 111–122.
    
    

For an overview of Publications and Research by María Piquer-Rodríguez, please follow this link