Juan Camilo Villegas

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• PhD - University of Arizona
• Professor (Associate) at University of Antioquia

Ecohydrological and biogeochemical processes in tropical montane forests canopies are key in the provision of water‐related ecosystem services. However, the sustainability of these services is threatened by environmental change. Climate change in the tropics suggest an increase in hydrological extremes, with ENSO as the main mechanism of climatic v...

Regional-scale tree die-off events driven by drought and warming and associated pests and pathogens have occurred recently on all forested continents and are projected to increase in frequency and extent with future warming. Within areas where tree mortality has occurred, ecological, hydrological and meteorological consequences are increasingly bei...

Vegetation actively affects different components of the water budget in multiple spatial and temporal scales. Changes in vegetation cover and structure—such as those resulting from land use—alter natural ecohydrological dynamics, leading to changes in natural hydrologic regimes. In tropical mountain ecosystems, such as the Colombian Andes, signific...

2017. Prototype campaign assessment of disturbance-induced tree loss effects on surface properties for atmospheric modeling. Ecosphere 8(3): Abstract. Changes in large-scale vegetation structure triggered by processes such as deforestation, wild-fires, and tree die-off alter surface structure, energy balance, and associated albedo—all critical for...

In 2014, an extreme drought caused massive, unprecedented livestock and wildlife deaths in northwestern South America’s tropical savanna region. The causes of this drought remain unclear. Here, we present evidence that a weakening of the atmospheric teleconnection from the Amazon forests is a previously unknown mechanism behind this and other regio...

Recent increases in societal demands for ecosystems have caused significant shifts in vegetation, land use, and ecological dynamics, particularly in sensitive mountain regions with strong environmental gradients like the tropical Andes, where environmental change is occurring rapidly, altering crucial services related to water and soil, including h...

In tropical montane forests, the Earth’s largest biodiversity hotspots, there is increasing evidence that climate warming is resulting in montane species being displaced by their lowland counterparts. However, the drivers of these changes are poorly understood. Across a large elevation gradient in the Colombian Andes, we established three experimen...

Mortality of tree species around the globe is increasingly driven by hotter drought and heat waves. Tree juveniles are at risk, as well as adults, and this will have a negative effect on forest dynamics and structure under climate change. Novel management options are urgently needed to reduce this mortality and positively affect forest dynamics and...

Study region: Tropical watershed in the Colombian Andes, the Chico River (CR) watershed. Study focus: Hydrological models are widely used to project the impacts of LULC (Land Use/Land Cover) change on water budget. However, their ability to produce reliable predictions depends on how accurately they represent the role of vegetation in the watershed...

Los crecientes procesos de expansión urbana han generado diversas alteraciones en las propiedades bioquímicas y físicas de los sistemas hidrológicos en las cuencas, puesto que además de modificar las condiciones hidrológicas del territorio, incorporan múltiples contaminantes a los cuerpos de agua. De esta manera, la contaminación difusa resultante...

Trees support key processes in both natural and managed ecosystems. In highly intervened urban environments, trees have been generally associated with benefits such as air quality, microclimate regulation, and biodiversity conservation. University campuses contain diverse and well-managed tree collections that provide local functions such as educat...

Tropical montane forests (TMFs) are biodiversity hotspots and provide vital ecosystem services, but they are disproportionately vulnerable to climate warming. In the Andes, cold‐affiliated species from high elevations are being displaced at the hot end of their thermal distributions by warm‐affiliated species migrating upwards from lower elevations...

The forest–savanna transition is the most widespread ecotone in the tropics, with important ecological, climatic, and biogeochemical implications at local to global scales. However, the factors and mechanisms that control this transition vary among continents and regions. Here, we analyzed which factors best explain the transition in northern South...

Understanding ecohydrological dynamics that result from land-use conversions is fundamental in managing ecosystem services. One common forest transformation in the tropics is the establishment of monospecific plantations with exotic species for timber exploitation, replacing highly diverse natural forests. The impacts of establishing forest plantat...

Climate warming is causing compositional changes in Andean tropical montane forests (TMFs). These shifts are hypothesised to result from differential responses to warming of cold‐ and warm‐affiliated species, with the former experiencing mortality and the latter migrating upslope. The thermal acclimation potential of Andean TMFs remains unknown. Al...

Global demand for vegetable oil and high oil palm yield have driven the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations in tropical countries. The research literature widely recognizes the effects of forest cover conversion into oil palm on biodiversity, deforestation, and carbon dynamics. However, research on the ecohydrological impacts of oil palm planta...

Highly diverse neotropical ecosystems exhibit a natural limitation of Phosphorus in the soil, sufficient to limit productivity and structure. This is more pronounced in Andean ecosystems, with high forest fragmentation and forest loss rates aggravating the effect. Previous studies have highlighted the importance of precipitation and its interaction...

Gridded precipitation products (GPPs) represent an alternative to and a complement to gauge-based observations of precipitation, improving the representation of spatio-temporal precipitation variability in regions with scarce gauge networks. However, GPPs' accuracy varies among products, temporal resolution, and regions, indicating the need for par...

Amazon forests are being degraded by myriad anthropogenic disturbances, altering ecosystem and climate function. We analyzed the effects of a range of land‐use and climate‐change disturbances on fine‐scale canopy structure using a large database of profiling canopy lidar collected from disturbed and mature Amazon forest plots. At most of the distur...

Montane ecosystems provide environmental services (supply and regulation of water), the climate and land use change interactively affect the ecohydrological and biogeochemical processes that support the provision of such services. We evaluate the effect of vegetation cover/land use and the seasonality and intensity of the rainfall on the functions...

Las Comunicaciones Nacionales sobre Cambio Climático (CNCC) son un mecanismo para que los países informen sus avances en mitigación y adaptación, y constituyen uno de los elementos de base para la política sobre cambio climático a escala nacional. Colombia ha emitido tres CNCC. La tercera plantea un escenario que considera las proyecciones de diver...

In democracies around the world, societies have demonstrated that elections can have major consequences for the environment. In Colombia, the 2022 presidential elections will take place at a time when progress towards peace has stalled and socioeconomic, security, and environmental conditions have deteriorated. The recent declines in these conditio...

The hydroclimatology of Northern South America responds to the coupling between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the Amazon‐Andes interactions, and the orographic barrier of the regional Andes. The relative contributions of oceanic and terrestrial moisture sources have been mostly evaluated in modeling studies, with limited observational data for v...

Vegetation affects local water balance partitioning via effects on incoming precipitation, local radiation balance and soil hydrological properties. The extent of these effects is related to plant functional traits, such that forest composition plays an important role in its hydrological function. Therefore, the selection of species in forest resto...

Aim Multiple abiotic and biotic factors, mainly the amount and seasonality of precipitation, fire regime, soil properties and species adaptation strategies, have been invoked to explain the existence of the tropical savanna–humid forest transition. We explored the rainfall variables that influence the probability of forest or savanna occurring in n...

Climate models predict that in the coming decades many arid regions will experience increasingly hot conditions and will be affected more frequently by drought. These regions are also experiencing rapid vegetation change, notably invasion by exotic grasses. Invasive grasses spread rapidly into native desert ecosystems due, in particular, to interan...

The hydroclimatology of Northern South America responds to strongly-coupled dynamics of oceanic and terrestrial surface-atmosphere exchange, as moisture evaporated from these sources interact to produce continental rainfall. However, the relative contributions of these two source types through the annual cycle have been described only in modeling s...

The evaluation of remote precipitation estimates (RPE) performance is key before any use in hydrological or climatic applications. In this study, we evaluated the performance of 7 RPE products (TRMM, CHIRPSv2, CMORPH, PERSIANN-CDR, PERSIAN-CCS, ERA5, and MSWEPv2.6) over Colombian Orinoquía and Amazonía regions for the period 2004-2015. Continuous (...

In tropical regions, particularly in Central and South America (CSA), the projections of climate seasonality under climate change are still uncertain. This is especially true for ecologically‐relevant variables such as precipitation and temperature. However, assessments of model‐based projections of seasonal climate for this region are scarce. We a...

The Pacific coast of northern South America, from Panama to Ecuador, also known as the Chocó biogeographic region, is one of the wettest and more biodiverse places on Earth. These wet conditions are caused by the presence of a tropical low-level atmospheric current known as the Chocó low level Jet that transports moisture from the Pacific Ocean to...

In tropical montane ecosystems, forest conversion into agricultural uses, combined with changes in climate can alter ecosystem hydrological and biogeochemical processes in multiple ways. A deeper understating of the interactions and couplings between land use/land cover, ecohydrological, and biogeochemical processes is needed to identify and evalua...

Characterizing and managing deforestation are some of the most urgent environmental challenges in the tropics. Forest loss depends on multiple drivers that relate to ecological and socioeconomic conditions, and varies significantly in time and space. Understanding the causes and potential consequences of forest loss in a region, requires detailed k...

The savanna - forest transition in the tropics has a large and complex variation in vegetation structure both vertically and horizontally. 3D-imaging technologies provide detailed high-resolution measurements of the vegetation structure. However, the use of these observations globally faces practical challenges due to spatio-temporal gaps and opera...

Vegetation dynamics are key to understanding and simulating water balance in hydrological models. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model represents these dynamics through a plant growth module that was originally developed based on temperate regions. Alemayehu et al. (2017) developed SWAT-T, a SWAT variant that is better suited for represe...

Tropical ecosystems are undergoing unprecedented rates of degradation from deforestation, fire, and drought disturbances. The collective effects of these disturbances threaten to shift large portions of tropical ecosystems such as Amazon forests into savanna-like structure via tree loss, functional changes, and the emergence of fire (savannization)...

An improved understanding of ecosystem functions is increasingly needed as ecosystem management moves towards optimizing their capacity to provide services to society. Such a task requires the characterization of ecosystem functions in strategic systems such as tropical mountain forests, which are also subject to pressure due to both global and loc...

Climate change can have marked effects on ecosystem service (ES) provision in the Andes, particularly in peri-urban areas. In addition to global-change related processes, cumulative effects such as changing socio-political dynamics, environmental policies, and conflicts are also changing type and magnitude of land use–land cover (LULC) dynamics in...

The Amazon forests and climatological precipitation patterns in South America are interrelated. A fundamental question is how these patterns depend on the presence of forests. Here we investigate this relationship by studying how precipitation varies with distance from the ocean along wind streamlines linking the Atlantic Ocean to northwestern and...

Precipitation in the tropical Andes is strongly influenced by the ENSO phases and orographic effects. In particular, precipitation can be drastically reduced during El Niño. Decision-making about water resources relies on modelling precipitation as the main source for water availability. Here we evaluate ERA-Interim´s capacity to represent precipit...

• Las diferencias intraespecíficas son un indicio de que la hoja es un órgano sensible a las variaciones ambientales. . • Citharexylum subflavescens y Croton magdalenensis → diferencias estadísticamente significativas → hojas sol y sombra → en los tres rasgos. Dicha variabilidad puede ayudarles ante la heterogeneidad ambiental. • Los resultados d...

For decades, scientists have debated the relation between physical attributes and vegetation and the partitioning of rainfall (P) into evaporation (E) and runoff (R) in basins. Physical and ecological processes explain the long‐term behavior of E via water or energy limitations. Needed are similar globally‐applicable frameworks for describing the p...

Latin America exhibits one of the highest rates of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) loss worldwide along with a remarkable asymmetry in the access to ES benefits (ecosystem services inequality, ESI hereafter). The objective of this manuscript is to propose and validate a conceptual model to understand the links between ESI and ecosystem ser...

Colombia, one of the world’s most species- rich nations, is currently undergoing a profound social transition: the end of a decades- long conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC. The peace agreement process will likely trans-form the country’s physical and socioeconomic landscapes at a time when humans are altering E...

The ability to predict streamflow regimes is fundamental for decision-making in water resources planning. In this study, the capacity of semi-distributed SWAT model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) was evaluated to predict mean and extreme streamflows in the Chico river Andean watershed. SWAT-CUP program and daily streamflow data for 1990-2004 and...

Extreme flows are key components of river flow regimes that affect manifold hydrological, geomorphological and ecological processes with societal relevance. One fundamental characteristic of extreme flows in river basins is that they exhibit scaling properties which can be identified through scaling (power) laws. Understanding the physical mechanis...

Many natural and social phenomena depend on river flow regimes that are being altered by global change. Understanding the mechanisms behind such alterations is crucial for predicting river flow regimes in a changing environment. Here we introduce a novel physical interpretation of the scaling properties of river flows and show that it leads to a pa...

Global changes in forest cover have been related to major scientific and social challenges. There are important uncertainties about the potential effects of ongoing forest loss on continental water balances. Here we present an observation-based analysis of long-term water balance partitioning (precipitation divided into evaporation and runoff) in 2...

Mountain ecosystems provide key services to a large portion of the population in the tropics. However, they are particularly vulnerable to regional environmental changes such as soil degradation, via soil erosion and associated nutrient loss, both dissolved in runoff and suspended in sediment. Current trends in land use conversion combined with pro...

* Precipitation in the complex terrain of the tropical Andes of South America can be strongly reduced during El Niño events, with impacts on numerous societally-relevant services. * Simulating precipitation patterns and behavior in such areas of complex terrain has remained a challenge for regional climate models. * Current data products such as ER...

In last decades, there has been increasing debate about the hydrological and meteorological role of forests, particularly regarding its role in the regulation of the energy and water balances. Here we summarize results from an ongoing research program studying this problem. First, we introduce the notion of ecohydrological scaling to show the exist...

Forest loss in hotspots around the world impacts not only local climate where loss occurs, but also influences climate and vegetation in remote parts of the globe through ecoclimate teleconnections. The magnitude and mechanism of remote impacts likely depends on the location and distribution of forest loss hotspots, but the nature of these dependen...

Anomalies in annual averaged precipitation. Anomalies in annual average precipitation in mm per day in three experiments: (a) wNA, (b) Amazon, (c) wNA+Amazon. Results are not masked for significance. Anomalies are calculated as the difference between the control and experimental cases. We include all values, including those that do not pass a signi...

Change in climate variables calculated as the area-weighted difference between the experimental and control case. Significance of change is indicated with p-values, reported in parentheses. (DOCX)

Ecosystem dynamics are a fundamental driver of the water cycle, with their influence operating on multiple spatial and temporal scales1, 2, 3. For decades, hydrologists and environmental scientists have debated the influence of forests in the water cycle4, 5, 6 and particularly their effect in the regulation of rainfall-runoff dynamics that result...

South America is experiencing rapid change in forest cover, of both native and planted forest. Forest cover loss is primarily attributable to fire, logging, and conversion of native forest to agriculture, pasture, and forest plantations, and types of change vary within and among the many diverse types of forests in South America. Major changes in f...

RESUMEN: Durante los últimos años, la cuenca Amazónica ha sido el foco de numerosos estudios hidroclimáticos centrados en el comportamiento de la precipitación en esta cuenca y su influencia en el transporte de humedad hacia otras regiones de Suramérica. Se ha establecido la importancia de la circulación océano-atmósfera en la modulación de la esta...

The vegetation plays an important role in the hydrological cycle of region (Seller, 1997). The scientific discussion about the magnitude of the effects of a forest in the water cycle is still unresolved (Andreassian, 2004; Troch et al., 2013), because this influence interferes in multiple spatial and temporal scales (Bonan, 2008; Seller, 1997; Spra...

Assessment of ecosystem services—the benefits society receives from ecosystems—can be improved by including broader spatial and temporal scales of geosciences perspectives.

The occurrence of natural and socially-driven catastrophic events has increased in the last few decades, in response to global environmental changes. One of the most societally-relevant challenges in managing the effects of these events is the establishment of risk management strategies that focus managing vulnerability, particularly in disfavored...

Context Vegetation is projected to continue to undergo major structural changes in coming decades due to land conversion and climate change, including widespread forest die-offs. These vegetation changes are important not only for their local or regional climatic effects, but also because they can affect climate and subsequently vegetation in other...

Aim Movement of water from the land surface to the atmosphere (evapotranspiration, ET ) is the dominant output flux in the global terrestrial surface water budget. The partitioning of ET between soil evaporation ( E ) and plant transpiration ( T ) couples important ecological, hydrological and atmospheric processes. ET partitioning has been hypothe...

Processes within the critical zone-spanning groundwater to the top of the vegetation canopy-have important societal relevance and operate over broad spatial and temporal scales that often are not included in existing frameworks for ecosystem services evaluation. Here we expand the scope of ecosystem services by specifying how critical zone processe...

Land cover changes associated with both human activities and global change processes (such as drought, fire and invasive species) can lead to changes in biophysical processes that support hydrological processes in watersheds, leading to potential changes in longterm streamflow regimes. Traditional hydrological approaches have successfully associate...

“Citizen science” refers to the emerging practice in which individuals in the community, often en masse, partner with researchers to assist with data collection, analysis or interpretation. Such partnerships benefit researchers through access to data at a scale not possible for individuals or small teams. To date, the benefits to the citizen scient...

Vegetation, soil, and hydrology in drylands often collec-tively exhibit strong ecohydrological interrelationships in which vegetation both influences and is influenced by runoff, particularly on sites with more gradual slopes. These two-way relationships have important implica-tions for ecological restoration of disturbed sites, such as those being...

Water limited ecohydrological systems (WLES), with their broad extent, large stores of global terrestrial carbon, potential for large instantaneous fluxes of carbon and water, sensitivity to environmental changes, and likely global expansion, are particularly important ecohydrological systems. Strong nonlinear responses to environmental variability...

Many rangeland processes are driven by microclimate and associated ecohydrological dynamics. Most rangelands occur in drylands where evapotranspiration normally dominates the water budget. In these water-limited environments plants can influence abiotic and biotic processes by modifying microclimate factors such as soil temperature and potential so...

Too often, ecological restoration is conceived as a set of manipulative activities on the landscape, rather than a negotiation of interests between diverse parties over ecosystem goods and services. These negotiations are particularly important and challenging where historical social conflict has caused the mistrust of outsiders. We present a conce...

1. Climate extremes such as drought can trigger large-scale tree die-off, reducing overstorey canopy and thereby increasing near-ground solar radiation. This directly affects biotic and abiotic processes, including plant physiology, reproduction, phenology, soil evaporation and nutrient cycling, which themselves affect understory facilitation, prod...

Much of the terrestrial biosphere can be viewed as part of a gradient, with varying amounts of woody plant cover ranging from grassland to forest-the grassland-forest continuum. Woody plant cover directly impacts the soil microclimate through modifications of near-ground solar radiation and soil temperature, and these interactive effects are releva...