Dr. João Vitor S. Messeder

POSTDOCTORAL NETWORK  |   Global Change Center

Postdoctoral Associate

Faculty Mentor:  Dr. Haldre Rogers

Department of Fish & Wildlife Conservation

joaomesseder@vt.edu

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Dr. João Vitor Messeder is an evolutionary ecologist and Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech, working under the supervision of Dr. Haldre Rogers. His research investigates the ecology and evolution of frugivory and seed dispersal interactions and their consequences for plant community structure and diversity.

Specifically, João’s research program integrates three major frontiers in plant ecology: the evolutionary diversification of fleshy fruit traits using comparative phylogenetics and transcriptomics; the eco-evolutionary dynamics of plant–frugivore interactions, examining how fruit functional traits structure seed dispersal networks; and the consequences of animal-mediated seed dispersal for plant community structure and assembly.

At Virginia Tech, João’s work focuses on the ecological consequences of defaunation for plant communities in island ecosystems. Using datasets from the Mariana Islands, he evaluates how the functional loss of frugivorous birds driven by an invasive predator – the brown tree snake – affects forest succession and plant community assembly.

Before joining Virginia Tech, João earned his Ph.D. in Ecology from The Pennsylvania State University as a Fulbright Scholar. He also holds a Master’s degree in Plant Biology and a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil. During his Ph.D., he integrated evolutionary ecology with plant phylogenomics to investigate how evolutionary history shapes the diversification of fleshy fruit traits, and how trait variation influences frugivory interactions and plant dependence on frugivores for seed dispersal.