Jordi Agustí

Jordi Agustí

Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social

Humanities

PhD in Biological Sciences by the Univ. of Barcelona in 1981. Director of the Inst. of Paleontology M. Crusafont from 1985 to 2005. ICREA Research Professor at IPHES since 2005. Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona. Narcís Monturiol Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya for his scientific merits. Scientific Literature Prize of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2001). President of the Regional Committee on Neogene Mediterranean Stratigraphy from 1999 to 2009 and voting member of the Subcomission on Neogene Stratigraphy (IUGS, UNESCO). He is author or co-author of 151 papers published in indexed journals (WOS), among them Nature (4), Science (1) and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (3), as well as 162 papers in non-indexed Spanish and international journals. He is author or co-author of 52 book chapters. He has edited 14  books or monographs and written 16 books. He has directed 14 PhD thesis and 9 Master thesis. H-Index (WOS):41,

Research interests

My main field of interest is the environmental and biogeographic changes in the Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems in the last 10 milion years. I accomplish this goal throughout the study of the fossils of small mammals. This key time includes a number of critical climatic phases, such as the onset of the Northern Hemisphere Glaciation at 2.6 Ma, the early Pleistocene crisis at 1.8 Ma and the early-middle Pleistocene transition at 0.8 Ma. These crises have modelled the evolution of our own lineage, the hominids, which experienced significant changes following these climatic events. My research has therefore been developed in those areas having extraordinary conditions to follow these changes, either in the Iberian Peninsula (Vallès-Penedès and Guadix-Baza basins) or outside (northern Africa and, most specially, Georgia). Most of these areas are also key ones in order to elucidate the evolution of our lineage during the last 10 Ma, in relation with climatic and environmental changes.

Selected publications

- González-Guarda E, Tornero C, Petermann-Pichincura A, Ramírez-Pedraza I, Pino M, Corti P, Cortés L, Osorio F, Barrientos U, Espinoza A & Agustí J 2022, 'Dietary ecological traits of extinct mammalian herbivores from the last glacial termination at the Pilauco Site, Chile', Quaternary Research, 109, 141-146.

- Piñero P, Agustí J, et al. 2022. 'Quibas-Sima: A unique 1 ma-old vertebrate succession in southern Iberian Peninsula'Quaternary Science Reviews,  283, 107469.

- Agustí J, Piñero P, Lozano-Fernández I & Jiménez-Arenas JM 2022. 'A new genus and species of arvicolid rodent (Mammalia) from the Early Pleistocene of Spain'. Comptes Rendus Palevol., 21 (39): 847-858.

- Ochando J, Carrion J, Altolaguirre Yl, Munuera M, Amoros G, Jimenez-Moreno G, Solano-Garcia J, Barsky D, Luzon C, Sanchez-Bandera C, Serrano-Ramos A, Toro-Moyano I, Saarinen J, Blain HA, Bocherens H, Oms O, Agusti, J, Fortelius M & Jimenez-Arenas JM 2022, 'Palynological investigations in the Orce Archaeological Zone, Early Pleistocene of Southern Spain', Review of Palaeobotany And Palynology, 304, 104725.

- Agusti J, Chochisvili G, et al. 2022, 'Small mammals (Insectivora, Rodentia, Lagomorpha) from the Early Pleistocene hominin-bearing site of Dmanisi (Georgia)', Journal of Human Evolution, 170, 103238.

- Aouraghe H, van der Made J, Haddoumi H, Agusti J et al. 2022, 'New materials of the white rhinoceros Ceratotherium simum and auerochs Bos primigenius from a Late Pleistocene terrace of the Oued el Hai (NE Morocco)-two elements of the Maghrebi Palearctic fauna', Historical Biology, 34:10, 1981-1999.

- Martínez-Monzon A, Sanchez-Bandera C, Fagoaga A, Oms O, Agustí J et al. 2022, 'Amphibian body size and species richness as a proxy for primary productivity and climate: The Orce wetlands (Early Pleistocene, Guadix-Baza Basin, SE Spain)', Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 586, 110752.