Pedro Alexandre Marques da Silva Salgueiro

I have completed my degree in Biology at the University of Évora in 2006. My thesis focused on the determination of the ecological requirements and habitat use of a steppe bird – the little bustard Tetrax tetrax. In 2009 I have concluded my Master degree in Conservation Biology with a thesis addressing the methodological issues and the need for standardization of bird monitoring programs in wind farms.
Since the conclusion of my degree I have been specializing in bird ecology and the use of birds as valuable indicators of habitat changes. I have participated on several studies and assessments aiming to determine the impact of human infrastructures on fauna (e.g. wind farms, roads, railways). In the past 5 years I have worked on a project aiming the ecological recovery of quarries. This challenging (and ongoing) project dealt with impact assessment, implementation of mitigation measures and long-term monitoring of fauna communities in order to promote best practice guidance on quarry recovery.
My main areas of research are Conservation Biology and Landscape Ecology mainly applied to fauna species and communities in human-modified landscapes. My interest relies mostly on unravelling the determinants of species and communities distribution patterns in landscapes subjected to active management and thus vulnerable to changes. I focus on measuring the degree of such changes in order to understand the impact of habitat degradation, habitat loss and landscape fragmentation on species occurrence, community structure and ecological processes (e.g. connectivity). In a changing world, my personal challenge is to build up the bridge between scientific outputs and real-world problems concerning habitat and landscape management, hoping for more sustainable and conscientious use of natural resources.
I am working on my PhD project since 2013, where I focus on landscape connectivity analysis applied to bird community persistence in fragmented areas. I am particularly interested in determine critical thresholds of habitat loss and fragmentation and its implications on bird community assemblage and network resilience. Ultimately, I intend to evaluate how changes in structure and dynamics of forest management affect landscape connectivity when accounting for different and multiple dispersal abilities.