Rui Manuel Cleto Morgado

My broad research interests are in the area of biodiversity monitoring, management and conservation in human-modified landscapes, particularly in Mediterranean farmland/woodland semi-natural landscapes. My current specific interests include: (i) the study of the drivers (political, market-related, biophysical) of current land use and management changes across the Mediterranean (e.g. associated to agricultural intensification) and of its impacts on biodiversity and associated ecosystem services (e.g. pest control services by birds and bats). Within this line of research I am mostly using the olive crop and farmland birds (with its different functional groups) as model system and biological indicator group, respectively, and; (ii) the study of the interactions between human infrastructures and biodiversity, particularly between transmission power lines and birds, including exploring the possibilities for mitigating these infrastructure’s negative impacts (e.g. bird collision) while potentiating the positive ones (e.g. bird nesting). 

I completed my graduation in Biology at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon in 1997, with a graduation work on the ecology of the great bustard (Otis tarda). I have then worked as a research grant holder at Centro de Ecologia Aplicada Prof. Baeta Neves, Instituto Superior de Agronomia (CEABN; 1999-2008), where I mostly conducted research on the ecology and conservation of farmland/steppe birds; and as an environmental consultant at the private company ERENA - Ordenamento e Gestão de Recursos Naturais S.A. (2008-2014), where I participated in different projects in the fields of (i) human infrastructure impact assessment and monitoring (including that of roads, dams, irrigation blocks, airport structures, wind farms, etc.), and (ii) land planning and management (e.g. Management Plans for Protected Areas). I have recently concluded my PhD at InBIO - Research Network in Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology (2022), in which the drivers and biodiversity impacts of olive farming intensification in the Mediterranean Region are analyzed, and I am since September 2022 a PhD researcher at the REN Biodiversity Chair.