Camilo Escobar-Sierra
Molecular ecology · Environmental stress biology · Systems ecology · Integrative eco-omics
Understanding biological organisation and resilience under environmental stress
My research asks how environmental stress affects biological systems from molecular responses to organismal performance and ecological change, and when adaptive responses begin to fail.
I combine field-realistic environmental gradients with molecular ecology, integrative eco-omics and computational approaches to connect biological mechanisms with organismal performance and ecological consequences. I work primarily with aquatic organisms, communities and holobionts.
Current position
Postdoctoral Researcher & Lecturer
Institute for Environmental Research (IfER), RWTH Aachen University
Three connected research dimensions
Together, these dimensions frame my research programme.
Real-world environmental stress
Field gradients and environmentally realistic exposures help reveal how chemical mixtures, salinisation and other co-occurring pressures affect organisms under ecological complexity.
Biological organisation and resilience
I ask how stress changes coordination among molecular, microbial, physiological and organismal layers, and where compensatory responses begin to fail.
Integrative eco-omics
I increasingly connect transcriptomics with microbiome, metagenomic, proteomic, genomic, physiological and ecological information to interpret responses across biological layers.
Across these questions, I develop reproducible workflows and resources for complex and non-model biological systems, with emphasis on traceability, biological interpretation and reusable computation.
A conceptual map of the research programme
The map follows how I connect environmental gradients with biological responses, cross-layer organisation, resilience and ecological consequences.
- Environmental stressors & gradientsField ecology · environmental chemistry
- Molecular, microbial & physiological responsesTranscriptomics · microbiome · physiology
- Cross-layer biological organisationMulti-omics · networks · coordination
- Compensation & resilienceBuffering · thresholds · performance
- Ecological consequencesOrganismal condition · ecological interpretation
Selected work
EchoGO
A reproducible framework for annotation-context-aware functional interpretation in non-model transcriptomics.
Holtemme Gammarus Ecotoxicogenomics
A reproducible research compendium linking micropollutant gradients with transcriptomic and network responses in wild Gammarus pulex.
Emerging research programme
Integrating molecular, microbial, physiological and ecological information to study biological organisation, compensation and resilience loss under environmental stress.
A trajectory grounded in organisms and field ecology
My research trajectory has progressively integrated field, molecular and computational approaches around questions of environmental stress. It began in ichthyology, freshwater ecology and applied aquatic science in Colombia, developed through fish stress physiology and field transcriptomics, and now extends into integrative eco-omics and systems-level questions of resilience.
About me · Selected publications
Follow the research
Current project updates, conference activity and work in progress are shared through professional channels.