Rodrigo Bernal González is a Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

n botanist who specialises in the palm family

Arecaceae

Arecaceae or Palmae , are a family of flowering plants, the only family in the monocot order Arecales. There are roughly 202 currently known genera with around 2600 species, most of which are restricted to tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate climates...

. Bernal is a faculty member at the Institute of Natural Sciences, National University of Colombia

National University of Colombia

The Universidad Nacional de Colombia , also called UNAL or just UN, is a public, national, coeducational, research university, located primarily in Bogotá, Medellín, Manizales and Palmira, Colombia...

. He received his Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 from the University of Aarhus

University of Aarhus

Aarhus University , located in the city of Aarhus, Denmark, is Denmark's second oldest and second largest university...

 in 1996.

Bernal has published over sixty works on palm systematics

Systematics

Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of terrestrial life, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees...

 and ecology

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

. He has described species in the genera Aiphanes

Aiphanes

Aiphanes is a genus of spiny palms which is native to tropical regions of South and Central America and the Caribbean. There are about 26 species in the genus, ranging in size from understorey shrubs with subterranean stems to subcanopy trees as much as tall...

, Astrocaryum

Astrocaryum

Astrocaryum is a genus of about 36 to 40 species of palms native to Central and South America and Trinidad.-Description:Astrocaryum is a genus of spiny palms with pinnately compound leaves–rows of leaflets emerge on either side of the axis of the leaf in a feather-like or fern-like pattern. Some...

, Attalea

Attalea (genus)

Attalea is a large genus of palms native to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America. This pinnately leaved, non-spiny genus includes both small palms lacking an aboveground stem and large trees. The genus has a complicated taxonomic history, and has often been split into four or five...

, Catoblastus, Ceroxylon

Ceroxylon

Ceroxylon is a genus of flowering plant in the Arecaceae family, native to the Andes in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, known as Andean wax palms....

, Chamaedorea

Chamaedorea

Chamaedorea is a genus of 107 species of palms, native to subtropical and tropical regions of the Americas.. The name is derived from the Greek words χαμαί , meaning "on the ground," and δωρεά , meaning "gift." It refers to the easily reached fruits or the plants' low-growing nature.Chamaedorea...

, Geonoma

Geonoma

Geonoma is a genus of small to medium-sized palms native to the forest understorey of tropical Central and South America.This palm genus is one of the largest in the Neotropics...

and Socratea

Socratea

Socratea is a genus of five species of palms found in tropical America. It can uproot itself and move away from where it germinated....

and coauthored a field guide to the palms of the Americas

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

.

External links

• Faculty web page at the National University of Colombia
  National University of Colombia
  The Universidad Nacional de Colombia , also called UNAL or just UN, is a public, national, coeducational, research university, located primarily in Bogotá, Medellín, Manizales and Palmira, Colombia...
  
  .