Rafael Jordana, professor emeritus of Physiology and Zoology at the University of Navarra, has been recognized by the magazine Soil Organism as one of the leading experts on springtails in history.

Soil Organism is an international journal that collects original research articles on soil organic biology. A December 2020 article "Towards a global synthesis of Collembola knowledge - challenges and potential solutions" addresses the current status of Collembola taxonomy, new technologies for species identification, improvements in data collection, as well as the main challenges facing research on this type of soil microarthropods.

Among the issues mentioned in this article are the species described for science, where Professor Jordana is in seventh place in the ranking of scientists in history who have described more species of springtails for science, with more than 247.

A career in the service of science, as a researcher, manager and teacher.

Rafael Jordana (Zaragoza, 1941) graduated in Biological Sciences from the University of Barcelona and received his PhD from the University of Navarra. Among the merits attributed to Professor Jordana are the two professorships he obtained by competitive examination in Animal Physiology and Applied Zoology at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of La Laguna in 1971.

In addition to his work dedicated to teaching and research, and his numerous publications of articles and books, Jordana has assumed other responsibilities at the management level throughout his career: dean of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Navarra (1981-1990), director of the Department of Zoology (1972-1999), promoter and director of the Museum of Zoology of the University of Navarra (1980-2011) as well as audits in food companies, among many others.

Bibliographic Reference

Potapov, A.; Bellini, B.; Chown, S.; Deharveng, S.; Janssens, F.; Kováč, L.; Kuznetsova, N.; Ponge, J-F.; Potapov, M.; Querner, P.; Russell, D.; Sun, X.; Zhang, F.; Berg, M. (2020). Towards a global synthesis of Collembola knowledge - challenges and potential solutions. Soil Organisms, 92 (3), pp. 161-188. DOI: doi.org/10.25674/so92iss3pp161.