His scientific work has been featured by The New York Times;[4] National Geographic;[5] the BBC; Wired;[6] IFLoveScience;[7] The Independent (London) and Reader's Digest, among others.

[10] His study of invertebrate ecology always centered on the evolutionary origin of adaptations that allowed mollusks, velvet worms, and insects to inhabit particular places.

[13] This study solved some questions that had been made but left unanswered by Charles Darwin in his Journal of Researches and in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex.

[14] With H.F. Swanson, he reported that daily records of the Red Admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta) taken for more than 8000 consecutive days identified demographic patterns that can be missed in studies with less detailed observations.

[17] His work with Z. Barrientos found that even though the individual species change, the guild distribution within insect communities is similar among highland paramos of several countries, paralleling a phenomenon previously recorded in marine islands.

[20] His 1995 work set more than a century of disconnected findings inside an evolutionary framework that explained the possible origin of the basic physiological, morphological and behavioral characteristics of the Onychophora, and also produced the first phylogeny that included both extinct and extant species.

[29] He also proposed detailed routes for urban corridors to improve cities for plants and animals that live in them,[30] and was among the first ecologists to recognize that road mortality caused by vehicles is much higher among insects and other invertebrates than among mammals.

[36] At the 100th anniversary of Picado's theoretical model of bromeliad colonization, he measured experimentally the effect of rain and fallen debris on macroinvertebrates that reached artificial water tanks in a forest.

[38] On a more philosophical line, he also published on the ethics of education and science in the times of Internet,[39] and on the need to include people with disabilities when designing website and other products.

[44] The question of why brown quetzal feathers are perceived as green by the human eye also considered how such adaptation can work in the moist ecosystems inhabited by these birds.

[55] He wrote several textbooks used in Latin American colleges and high schools, including some on tropical natural history, ecology, general biology and one on sustainable development that is considered a landmark for its extensive use of cartoons.