Gonçalo Ferraz
PhD Student
After taking my bachelor’s degree in biology at the University of Porto, I found myself amazed by conservation biology and evolution, which led me to take the Master’s programme in Biodiversity, Genetics and Evolution at CIBIO-InBIO. Due to my deep interest in the processes that underlie the natural world, I performed my master’s thesis at the CIBIO Ecogenomics group, under the supervision of Raquel Godinho, and worked on a project in which we tried to understand which genomic signatures could be related to the unique phenotypes of the Angolan Giant Sable (Hippotragus niger variani). During this period, I have learnt most of what I acknowledge about evolutionary biology and genomics, as well as developed bioinformatic skills.
After my master’s degree, I decided to challenge myself and change my research field, working on a project that combines the topics I enjoy the most: bird ecology, population genetics, and conservation. In 2021 I enrolled in CIBIO’s Ph.D. program in Biodiversity, Genetics and Evolution, and acquired an FCT Ph.D. grant with a project supervised by João Paulo Silva, Paulo Célio Alves, and François Mougeot (IREC-CSIC). In this project, our objective is to understand how two Iberia farmland bird species, the pin-tailed (Pterocles alchata) and the black-bellied sandgrouse (Pterocles orientalis), cope with changes in their habitat, mostly caused by agricultural intensification. I am specifically interested in the factors that influence their distribution, abundance, and breeding success, as well as understanding their diet and how populations are connected within the peninsula.
Due to its importance in collecting field data, during this period I have also become affiliated with the Biological Station of Mértola.
