Mário Mota-Ferreira
Collaborator
My main research interests are applied ecology and conservation of freshwater ecosystems and aquatic vertebrate species (fish and amphibian). I'm also keen in developing Species Distributions Models (SDM's) that explicit addresses the problem of the species imperfect detectability.
I've graduated in Biology by the University of Évora in 2006. In 2012 I've completed a Master in Conservation Biology, by the same university, with a thesis entitled: "Multi-species occupancy modelling of natural and anthropogenic habitats by Mediterranean amphibians: grim prospects for conservation in irrigated farmland". Recently, I got a PhD grant from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT).
I have started working with the conservation of temporary ponds and the persistence of amphibians in an increasingly intensified agricultural landscape (Southeast Portugal) in 2008 has a research fellow in the research project "Spatial structure of amphibian (meta)populations in Mediterranean farmland: implications for conservation management" (PTDC/BIABDE/68730/2006 - Ciências Biológicas - Biodiversidade e Ecologia), funded by FCT. In 2011, I became a research fellow in the FCT research project "Sabor-LTER –Sabor fragmentation experiment: understanding long-term ecological consequences of infrastructure development and compensatory mitigation" (Reference LTER/BIA-BEC/0004/2009). In this projected, I've been monitoring fish and amphibian occupation of stream network that is going to be impacted by the construction of a large infrastructure, a reservoir for hydroelectric production (Baixo Sabor). I have also been developing statistical tools that model the true occurrence of species across stream networks using time to detection approaches to account to imperfect detectability.