Fernando Martínez Freiría is an Evolutionary Ecologist interested in the integrative understanding of phenotypic and genetic diversity and its application to conservation. He has a PhD in biology (2009) from the University of Salamanca (Spain) and he is currently a researcher at the Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, University of Porto (CIBIO/BIOPOLIS, Portugal). The major aims of his research include identifying biogeographical patterns, explaining the determinant factors, and inferring ecological and evolutionary processes to ultimately incorporate the resulting information into conservation assessments for biodiversity. He frequently uses ectotherms, particularly venomous snakes, as model organisms, relying on fieldwork, compilation of data from scientific collections, and spatially based approaches to integrate ecological, climatic, and genetic information at different geographic scales. His research uses a multidisciplinary toolbox that includes phylogenetics, phylogeography, and population genetics to quantify genetic diversity and characterize evolutionary dynamics, GIS-based tools and multivariate statistics to quantify phenotypic variation, identify its geographic patterns and establish links among phenotypic, genetic, and environmental variability, and, lastly, ecological models to identify the environmental requirements of species, lineages, and populations, and to infer suitable areas for their occurrence across time.