University of Oxford
11a Mansfield Rd
OX1 3SZ
UK
Masters student
Eduardo Navarro Valencia
Background
Even though insects may seem a little odd, to me they are the most interesting life form on the planet, and this interest and curiosity for them, drives in me an interest to protect them.
I’m from Panama, where I also did my Licenciatura (Bachelors) on Biology with a thesis that focused on analysing population dynamics of Geometridae moths (Inchworms) which help me cement my interest in insect conservation. From there I was a Visiting Student Fellow at the Arthropod Monitoring Lab at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute where I worked with next generation approaches to insect monitoring, from metabarcoding to Machine Learning assisted system for the identification of species.
I’m from Panama, where I also did my Licenciatura (Bachelors) on Biology with a thesis that focused on analysing population dynamics of Geometridae moths (Inchworms) which help me cement my interest in insect conservation. From there I was a Visiting Student Fellow at the Arthropod Monitoring Lab at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute where I worked with next generation approaches to insect monitoring, from metabarcoding to Machine Learning assisted system for the identification of species.
Research interests
My research interests focus on insect conservation, ecology, and biodiversity. I approach these topics from a multidisciplinary perspective, combining traditional methods for long-term population monitoring and ecological studies in entomology.
Additionally, I’m interested in the use of emerging technologies that facilitate species identification, the discovery of new species, and the automation of research protocols. Mainly through my participation on the Antenna Platform of the MILA institute and Espace pour la vie in Montreal.
Current research
My current research focuses on identifying the drivers that influence insect population dynamics, with particular emphasis on the effects of climate change and extreme weather events. Butterflies and moths, which are the focus of my work, provide essential ecosystem services, including pollination, and play a key role as a foundation of many food webs. I aim to investigate the impacts of climate change by (i) examining how contemporary insect communities respond to variation in temperature and habitat conditions, and (ii) assessing how future climate scenarios may affect these communities and their ecological functions.
Brief CV
Education:
2025-Current: MRes Biology
2020-2025: BSc Biology with an specialization on environmental biology. University of Panama
Professional Experience:
2023-Current: Student Fellow Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Arthropod Program
2022-2023- Research Intern Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Arthropod Program
Publications
Souto-Vilarós, D., Navarro-Valencia, E., Zamora, A. C., Campusano, Y., Lamarre, G. P. A., Perez, F., Lopez, Y., Bobadilla, R., Ramírez Silva, J. A., Janda, M., deWaard, J. R., Leponce, M., Barrios, H., & Basset, Y. (2025). Navigating the seven seas of arthropod collection protocols: Metabarcoding arthropod diversity in a tropical forest. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 16, 2395–2407. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.70135
Souto‐Vilarós, D., Basset, Y., Blažek, P., Laird‐Hopkins, B., Segar, S.T., Navarro‐Valencia, E., Zamora, A.C., Campusano, Y., Čtvrtečka, R., Savage, A.F. and Perez, F., 2024. Illuminating arthropod diversity in a tropical forest: Assessing biodiversity by automatic light trapping and DNA metabarcoding. Environmental DNA, 6(2), p.e540.
Jain, F. Cunha, M.J. Bunsen, J.S. Cañas, L. Pasi, N. Pinoy, F. Helsing, J. Russo, M. Botham, M. Sabourin, J. Fréchette, A. Anctil, Y. Lopez, E. Navarro, F. Perez Pimentel, A.C. Zamora, J.A. Ramirez Silva, J. Gagnon, T. August, K. Bjerge, A. Gomez Segura, M. Bélisle, Y. Basset, K.P. McFarland, D. Roy, T.T. Høye, M. Larrivée, D. Rolnick, Insect identification in the wild: The AMI dataset, Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), 2024.