Anselmo Nogueira
Life Sciences
Anselmo Nogueira spent his teenage years surrounded by nature in his hometown of Assis, a small municipality in the western part of São Paulo. He recalls cycling through the quiet streets and climbing the mango trees at his grandparents’ house. As an adult, science became his way of staying in touch with nature and preserving the sense of wonder of his youth.
His academic path took him to the Ribeirão Preto campus of the University of São Paulo, where he earned a degree in biological sciences, followed by a master’s in ecology from the National Institute for Amazonian Research. He then returned to USP’s main campus in São Paulo to complete his PhD in botany. His commitment to excellence in research took him further afield, with postdoctoral studies at the University of Jaén in Spain and the University of Arizona in the United States.
Anselmo’s current research unravels the interplay between plant traits and environmental factors in nitrogen fixation. By identifying species with exceptional nitrogen-fixing capabilities, he aims to contribute to soil enrichment strategies and promote sustainable management of Brazilian ecosystems. He is currently a professor at the Federal University of ABC.
Projects
Nitrogen is an essential building block of life, and legumes form partnerships with bacteria in their roots that can pull nitrogen from the air and convert it to a form that plants can use in a process called biological nitrogen fixation. This enriches the soil and improves plant growth. However, the efficiency of this cooperation varies greatly with factors such as light, soil nutrients, and plant characteristics, making it difficult to predict the results of this interaction in nature. Our goal is to investigate how these factors influence the development of nitrogen fixation. The project involves creating a database of Cerrado legume traits, studying the evolution of nitrogen fixation in different strains, and conducting experiments with legumes and their bacterial partners. Ultimately, this study will allow us to identify plants with high nitrogen-fixing capacity that can contribute to soil enrichment and management of native Brazilian ecosystems.
