Leandro Castello

Leandro Castello is an Associate Professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources and Environment. His research focuses on fish ecology, conservation, and fisheries management in tropical ecosystems, particularly the Amazon Basin. He holds a B.S. from Fundação Universidade do Rio Grande (FURG), Brazil (1998), an M.S. from the Maxwell School of Citizenship (2004), and a Ph.D. from State University of New York (2007).

Castello's research addresses global change impacts on fisheries, including overfishing, pollution, hydrological changes, and land use. He employs interdisciplinary approaches combining ecology, governance, and policy analysis to inform management strategies. Notable projects include studying arapaima migration in Amazon ria lakes and assessing climate-driven changes in river-floodplain ecosystems with NASA funding. He also investigates muskellunge population dynamics in Virginia's New River.

His work emphasizes community-based management, integrating local knowledge and participatory monitoring. Projects like the Amazon floodplain vulnerability study (with NASA) and land-use impacts on fisheries in Central Africa highlight his global reach. Castello collaborates with institutions worldwide, including the Woods Hole Research Center and the Universidade Federal do Pará.

Castello's research has contributed to policy-relevant insights, such as improving management of Amazon fisheries and mitigating deforestation through supply chain interventions. He teaches courses on fisheries techniques and conservation of animal populations. His lab's activities include otolith microchemistry studies and modeling fish population dynamics.