Vitor H. F. Gomes

Vitor H. F. Gomes is an environmental and data scientist currently serving as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Turku's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Finland. He simultaneously holds professorial positions at Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi (Biological Sciences Coordination), Universidade Federal Rural da Amazônia (Graduate Program in Tropical Botany), and Centro Universitário do Pará (School of Business, Technology and Innovation - Argo).

His educational background includes a PhD from Universidade Federal do Pará (2014-2018) with a sandwich period at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands (2015-2016). His doctoral research focused on impacts of climate change and deforestation on Amazonian tree flora, addressing knowledge gaps through interdisciplinary approaches combining ecology, climatology, and data science.

Gomes specializes in Amazonian biodiversity with research interests spanning tree species diversity, global change impacts, conservation biology, and species distribution modeling. His work integrates ecological theory with advanced data science to understand how Amazonian tree species respond to climate change and deforestation. As a key member of the Amazon Tree Diversity network (ATDN), he contributes to large-scale studies mapping density, diversity, and species-richness of the Amazon tree flora. His research has revealed critical insights about Amazonian biodiversity patterns, including how floodplain forests drive fruit-eating fish diversity at the basin scale and geographic patterns of tree dispersal modes across the region.

• CAPES 2019 Thesis Award
• Funding from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (2020-2021) for Quantification of the climate change effects over Amazonian tree flora according the Paris Agreement

Gomes has secured multiple research grants focusing on Amazonian biodiversity, including projects on the natural capital of forests in the Carajás region and effects of global change on Amazonian forest ecosystem services. His current CLAMBIO project at the University of Turku assesses how ongoing climate change may affect Amazonian plant and animal species, identifying vulnerable regions and habitat types. He also participates in the EVOAMAZ project, which integrates landscape history and environmental heterogeneity to derive biogeographical hypotheses about Amazonian biota.

As part of the Amazon Tree Diversity network, Gomes collaborates with an extensive international team of researchers across the Amazon basin. His work frequently appears in top journals including Nature, Science, and Nature Ecology & Evolution, demonstrating the significance of his contributions to understanding Amazonian biodiversity in the face of global change.