The defender of the “web of life” in the face of the climate crisis.
Sandra Díaz is an Argentine biologist and one of the world’s leading specialists in ecology and biodiversity. Her research addresses a crucial but sometimes overlooked aspect of the environmental crisis: the way climate change, land use and other global pressures transform the plant communities on which entire ecosystems depend.
Plants sustain the web of life. They provide food, shelter, regulate water and climate, store carbon and create the conditions in which animals, including humans, can survive. Díaz has shown that understanding biodiversity requires more than counting species. It is also necessary to study their functional traits: the characteristics that determine how organisms grow, reproduce, use resources and influence their environment.
She developed the first global quantitative picture of the essential functional diversity of vascular plants, known as the global spectrum of plant form and function. Her work has shaped the theory and practical use of functional diversity and helped explain how changes in plant communities affect ecosystem properties and human quality of life. She has also promoted plural approaches to the ways different societies value nature, including the influential concept of nature’s contributions to people.
Career and recognitions
Díaz studied Biology at the National University of Córdoba, where she graduated in 1984 and completed her PhD in 1989. She is Professor of Ecology at the same university and a Senior Principal Investigator of Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council. She co-founded TRY, the global communal plant-trait initiative, and co-chaired the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. She also contributed to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
Her distinctions include the Margalef Prize in Ecology, the Gunnerus Sustainability Award, the Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award and the 2025 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of several national academies. Her international scientific work has made her a clear and influential voice in the defence of biodiversity and in the search for fairer ways of responding to environmental change.
