Catarina Ferreira

I’m interested in the applied ecology, conservation and management of animal populations, particularly carnivores and their prey. So far, I’ve focused mainly on small mammal management for the conservation of predator communities of Mediterranean ecosystems.

During my PhD I investigated the relationships between predation risk, disease (myxomatosis) and fitness in juvenile European wild rabbits, a high-profile species of Mediterranean landscapes which is the target of expensive management techniques (such as predator and disease control) employed for conservationists and/or hunting purposes. I used survival analysis and population indicators to assess the effectiveness of these techniques in the wild. At the large scale, I also looked at the morphological differentiation between rabbit subspecies and the potential implications of this variation to the readjustment of the aforementioned management techniques. Overall, these findings have provided an important contribution for policy-makers to design species-specific conservation strategies, namely the conservation Action Plan with guidelines for the reintroduction of the Iberian lynx in Portugal, the most threatened felid in the world.

My current research interests focus on the combined effects of anthropogenic activities, landscape fragmentation and climate change on carnivore population ecology to improve their management and conservation, using lynx species from North America and Europe as models.