Fernando Ascensão

Biography

I have been developing my scientific research projects within landscape ecology, particularly in the field of road ecology. The impact of roads on wildlife is an emerging and one of the most challenging research fields in ecology, not only by the urgency of finding solutions that enable a sustainable coexistence between the road and wildlife, but also for the opportunity it provides to investigate the biology, population dynamics, genetic isolation and the behavior of wildlife species. It is a field that allows the study of human influences on the landscape and fauna, including the effects of fragmentation and destruction of habitats, important factors of threat to biodiversity. At the landscape level, I'm interested in assessing the value of Networks of Protected Areas (NPAs) for biodiversity conservation in a world of fast global changes. NPAs are the core element of existing conservation strategies but assume static environmental conditions, a paradigm clearly challenged as climate change and Human development are expected to alter significantly the availability of wildlife habitat. Species are being demanded to simultaneously track shifting environmental conditions while coping with habitat destruction and fragmentation effects. So the question arises: are NPAs enough for the conservation of species in such dynamic landscapes?

Research Interest

Landscape ecology, particularly in the field of road ecology