SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS

Species distribution modeling; climate change impacts on flora and vegetation; habitat invasion; vegetation dynamics; land use changes; vegetation dynamics after disturbance.

Loss on plant diversity on islands is a major topic on my current research. I am focused on specific sources of threat, namely disturbance by fire, human activities, habitat invasion and potential impacts from climate change on Madeira Island. The main purpose is to evaluate the level of threat for different species, namely restricted and rare endemic species. To do so, I am exploring the application of different modeling approaches, in order to assess potential impacts of climate change on plant species distribution. Spatial predictive modeling for plant distribution is also used to asses territory vulnerability to invasion.

Considering the high level of disturbance on the islands of Macaronesia, I am also interested on vegetation dynamics after disturbance, namely the evaluation of impacts on vegetation from land-use changes. The diachronic and synchronic description of vegetation communities on areas associated with disturbance is a procedure that is producing important data to understand the resilience of species to certain types of disturbance, and understand some distribution patterns