July 31, 2024, at 14:00h in building C2, room 2.2.24 (FCUL), Maria Machado will be presenting and discussing her Conservation Biology master’s dissertation, entitled “Effect of the presence of non-matrix habitats in the spatio-temporal ecological patterns of mesocarnivores in Mediterranean environments”.
July 26, 2024: Public discussion of a CB Master’s dissertation – Does artificial feeding of game species offer complementary resources for a non-target mesocarnivore community?
July 26, 2024, at 10:00h in building C2, room 2.2.24 (FCUL), Rui Antunes will be presenting and discussing his Conservation Biology master’s dissertation, entitled “Does artificial feeding of game species offer complementary resources for a non-target mesocarnivore community?”.
July 3, 2024: Public discussion of a CB Master’s dissertation – Nature might need some nurture: slow passive vegetation recovery in Mediterranean abandoned farmland The Baixo Sabor case study
On July 3, 2024, at 11:00h in building C2, room 2.2.24 (FCUL), António Ovídio Baptista Vaz Pato will be presenting and discussing his Conservation Biology master’s dissertation, entitled “Nature might need some nurture: slow passive vegetation recovery in Mediterranean abandoned farmland The Baixo Sabor case study”.
April 15, 2024: Public discussion of a CB Master’s dissertation – Conservation and biodiversity of insects of the Cesaredas Plateau
On April 15, 2024, at 10:00h in building C2, room 2.2.24 (FCUL), Tiago José Raimundo Carrapiço will be presenting and discussing his Conservation Biology master’s dissertation, entitled “Conservation and biodiversity of insects of the Cesaredas Plateau, Portugal”.
May 03, 2024: Public discussion of a CB Master’s dissertation – Bat activity in rice fields of Guinea-Bissau
On May 3, 2024, at 14:00h in building C2, room 2.2.24 (FCUL), Gonçalo Afonso Fernandes will be presenting and discussing his Conservation Biology master’s dissertation, entitled “Patterns and drivers of insectivorous bat activity around isolated trees in rice fields of Guinea-Bissau (West Africa)”.
April 11, 2024: Public discussion of a CB Master’s dissertation – Diet of European catfish in Portugal
On April 11, 2024, at 9:30h in building C2, room 2.2.24 (FCUL), Mafalda Cordeiro will be presenting and discussing her Conservation Biology master’s dissertation, entitled “Catfished: how metabarcoding diet analysis increases knowledge on predation by the invasive Silurus glanis”.
Plastic estuaries
A new study lead by FCUL found large amounts of artificial fibers in the Tejo estuary, as well as in several coastal areas of Western Africa, and was subject to a press release issued by FCUL. The MSc thesis of Catarina Serra-Gonçalves (class of 13/14) was instrumental for this work.
The results of this research are described in the article “Plastic and other microfibers in sediments, macroinvertebrates and shorebirds from three intertidal wetlands of southern Europe and west Africa”, in the journal Environmental Pollution, to be published in the next month of December.
First census of birds of prey across Guinea-Bissau shows different status for different species
Mohamed Henriques (15/16 class) just published the main results of his thesis in the journal Ostrich. During his thesis he drove >1700 km across the entire Guinea-Bissau and his results are the first for the entire country based on road surveys. A total of 33 species were counted and Mohamed found that Guinea-Bissau is still a stronghold for several birds of prey in West Africa, especially the hooded vulture. However many other species were scarce.
Will the largest green sea turtle colony in the Eastern Atlantic survive to climate change?
The MSc thesis of Ana Marques (class of 13/14) provided some of the most important results of a paper that was recently published in Marine Ecology Progress series.
The sex of sea turtle juveniles is determined by incubation temperature. Ana Marques worked on the Marine National Park of João Vieira- Poilão, Guinea-Bissau, in the island with the largest nesting colony of the green sea turtle in the Eastern Atlantic. Her work contributed to show that the selection of different nesting sites (exposed or protected from the sun) by the nesting adult females results in the production of balanced sex-ratios, even under a warming climate.
Do invasive species change their diet in their new ranges?
The thesis of Raquel Marques (2013/14 class) contributed to a work that compares the diets of an invasive species – the African clawed frog – on 6 different locations around the world, recently published on Peer J.
Her work shows that the Portuguese population depicts the most contrasting diet, which is related with the unique lotic habitat that was invaded by this species in Portugal.
