CIBIO-InBIO RESEARCHER DISTINGUISHED BY THE PHD AWARD IN ECOLOGY - AMADEU DIAS FOUNDATION

In his PhD, Luís Silva studied ecological interactions between birds and other taxonomic groups, underexplored in ecology. He identified, for the first time in a continent, the presence of a guild of birds as active pollinators, which exploit the pollen like food resource, constituting a real trophic niche of the ecosystem.

He also showed in his thesis titled “A community-level approach to forest biodiversity and avian dispersal services“, that birds carry spores between flowers and specifically to places suitable for their development, an ecological interaction practically unknown at ecosystem level, which is relevant to the understanding of the transmission of diseases that affect different cultivars. This knowledge was considered by SPECO “crucial to the development of management measures and conservation strategies”.

Currently, Luís Silva is doing a Post-doc at the CIBIO-InBIO research group Applied Ecology, focused on the potential of bird and bat top-down control over arthropod pests.

In the scope of this award, he will receive a monetary prize and will present his work at the 17th National Ecology Meeting, which will take place on November 15 and 16 at the University of Évora.

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Vencedores da Edição 2018 | Prémio de Doutoramento em Ecologia - Fundação Amadeu Dias