_{8/09/2017. Text by Marta Daniela Santos.}

Professor Harold A. Mooney (Senior Fellow, Emeritus - University of Stanford, USA) was one of the plenary lecturers of the international conference EMAPI - Ecology and Management of Alien Plant Invasions, which took place in Lisbon (Portugal) between the 4th and 8th September 2017, organized by cE3c.

Professor Mooney has been involved in plant research for years, from plant ecology to the study of physiology. His vast work has contributed to the modern global plant research. Plant invasions became the focus of his research in the late 1980s: since then, he has stressed the importance of an integrated perspective on alien plants, bringing together naturalists and social scientists. He brought attention on our impacts on ecosystems, when our activities imply or result in the introduction of new species.

The room was full to listen to Professor Mooney’s plenary talk, which focused on plant invasions in an era of global environmental changes and future uncertainty.

EMAPI 2017 took place between the 4th and 8th September 2017, organized by cE3c. Under the theme Syntheses, Challenges and New Opportunities, the conferece aimed to promote the opportunity of sharing findings and experiences, and presenting syntheses of state-of-the-art knowledge on alien plant invasions in order to face the many challenges of this thematic and create new opportunities to address it.