Rita Ramos
PhD Student
I have graduated in Conservation Biology in 2016, at the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon. My master’s thesis was about the movement ecology of juveniles from the endangered Iberian Imperial Eagle (Aquila adalberti). During that project I volunteer in a EU Life Project (LIFE Imperial) where I was involved in power line surveys and Imperial Eagles census.
After finishing my Master degree I started working at Liga para a Protecção da Natureza (LPN), a national NGO. I was responsible for the Protocolos Avifauna project. This project is a partnership between EDP Distribuição and some NGO that aims to minimize the impact of power lines in birds. From 2017 to 2019, the main focus of this project was the study of the impact of power lines in Great Bustards (Otis tarda) in Alentejo and to evaluate the efficiency of different anti-electrocution and anti-collision devices. During those 2 years I was responsible for power line surveys, Great bustard census and environmental education activities about grassland birds.
During 2019 I was a fellow researcher for CIBIO where I was involved in a project that aim to understand the impact of different agricultural and livestock management on birds’ community in Alentejo. We did bird census, vegetation sampling and inquiries to landowners to understand how different management practices can influence grassland birds.
All this work with movement ecology and grassland birds helped shape my PhD project where I aim to understand how extreme climatic events affect grassland birds’ distribution, movements and behaviours in a vulnerable habitat to climatic change (grasslands).
