AGRIVOLE – The role of voles in agroecosystems: Linking pest management to biodiversity conservation under environmental change

The AGRIVOLE project will assess the responses of vole communities to agroecosystem structure and agricultural practices, by combining ecological tools and high throughput DNA sequencing techniques. We will analyse the effects of different population regulatory processes and evaluate how community responses may affect the potential for pest outbreaks or impact the resilience of vole species of conservation concern. The focus will be on the vole community of northeastern Portugal agroecosystems, a species rich system where vole pests have significant economic impact on fruit tree orchards. We will use data already collected by our team on voles’ distribution in the region, complemented with detailed plant and vole surveys, including trophic niche analyses, across agroecosystems with different structures and management treatments. We expect the results obtained to contribute significantly to foster sustainable agricultural techniques linking pest management to biodiversity conservation.

Dates: 01 jul 2018 – 30 dez 2021 

Total funding: 238 938,62 €

FEDER support: 203 097,83€

National Funding: 35 840,79€