Biodiversity in fragmented landscapes: from terrestrial to insular forest patches

Habitat loss, fragmentation and subsequent degradation are primary drivers of biodiversity loss worldwide. In the tropics, hydropower development is becoming a major cause of habitat loss and fragmentation, often creating vast archipelagic landscapes, in which forest islands are isolated within a uniformly hostile open-water matrix. This talk will explore how species respond to insular habitat fragmentation as induced by dam construction. Such species responses will then be contrasted with those found for terrestrial matrix settings. Study cases on multiple taxonomic groups from the Brazilian Amazon and Southeast Asia will be presented to illustrate the variety of species responses to habitat loss and fragmentation.

Ana Filipa Palmeirim is bachelor’s in Biology and master in Conservation Biology, both by the University of Lisbon. Filipa has a PhD in Ecology by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, during which she investigated the responses of both small mammals and lizards to habitat loss and fragmentation as induced by a hydroelectric dam in central Brazilian Amazonia. Also in this University, Filipa carried out a postdoc focused on the separate effects of habitat loss and habitat fragmentation. Then, she moved to the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), in China, where she implemented a project spanning across three hydroelectric reservoirs in Southeast Asia, aiming to understand the impacts of dam construction and consequent insular fragmentation on species diversity. Afterwards, Filipa moved to the University of East Anglia, in the UK, for a postdoc funded by a Marie-Curie individual fellowship. Currently, Filipa is part of the TROPIBIO project based in CIBIO.