I am an interdisciplinary landscape ecologist, weaving together tropical ecology and social sciences to understand the relationship between farmer lifeways and conservation management in Latin American contexts. As a second-generation Costa Rican American with familial roots in agriculture, I bring a personal connection to my research, and my approach is informed by feminist, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist perspectives.

Using Costa Rica’s Monteverde region as an analytical case, my dissertation research examines the socio-ecological dynamics of land use change using a multiscale and mixed methods approach. Monteverde has undergone a significant economic transition from traditional dairy farming to diversified ecotourism, transforming both rural livelihoods and land management practices.

By integrating ground-based observations and remote sensing data, I am investigating  farmer-mediated changes in forest connectivity, microclimate heterogeneity, and hydrological processes. I draw on ethnographic tools, including qualitative interviews, surveys, and participatory mapping, to contextualize these changes and their spatial and temporal dynamics within the complex interactions between farmer perceptions, decision-making, and management practices.

Through this nuanced understanding of the relationships between human activities and environmental outcomes, my research aims to provide insights into the adaptive strategies employed by farmers facing development and climate change challenges. My hope for this work is that it informs sustainable landscape and livelihood planning efforts in tropical mountainous regions undergoing rapid socio-economic transformations.

My relationship with Monteverde traces back to my first exposure to field ecology as an undergraduate field assistant at Brown University, when Emily Hollenbeck brought me into the tree canopy for her epiphyte climate tolerance dissertation research. Captivated by the experience, I joined Dov Sax’s lab and collaborated with local biologists, Debra Hamilton and George Powell, to mist-net birds and carry out a 45-year analysis of elevational range shifts at the base of Monteverde’s rising cloud forest. In the years since, I have worked on vampire bat behavior in Gamboa, Panama with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), canopy ant ecology in Malaysian Borneo with Fulbright, and documenting ecosystem change in Hawaii’s Pu’u Maka’ala Reserve with the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON).

Outside of academic research, I enjoy seeking out a variety of experiences that keep me learning and growing both in community and on my own. Sometimes that takes the form of student organizing at Berkeley, conscientious traveling, or chismeando with besties.

yvalverde@berkeley.edu