Carnivore Conservation Ecology

+Biodiversity@CIÊNCIAS: Mobilizing CIÊNCIAS community for the improvement of the campus biodiversity and livelihood

• National Research Project
• 2020 to 2021

Summary:

In 2019 the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (FCUL) created the Ideas for Sustainability Contest with the aim of identifying and promoting initiatives that can contribute to sustainability, in the environmental, social and economic aspects within FCUL campus and/or in its interaction with the city of Lisbon. Projects “FCUL+Verde: promoting and valuing flora in Ciências" and "BioCommunity: together we discover biodiversity in Ciências”, which include several members of the Urban Lab in their teams, won, ex-aequo, the first edition.

The combination of both projects resulted in a new project, named +Biodiversity@CIÊNCIAS, which is currently being implemented (2020/2021). +Biodiversity@CIÊNCIAS aims to enhance sustainability in the Faculty of Science campus and it assumes biodiversity as the pillar sustaining ecosystems and their services and, consequently, human well-being.

However, biodiversity is under great pressure, decreasing at an unprecedented rate, mainly due to anthropic factors. To counter this trend, it is essential that citizens are aware of its importance. To address this objective the project aims to monitor biodiversity over time on the FCUL campus, involving both the “Science community” and the citizens who live and work in the area. Using monitoring equipment and data recorded in the citizen science platform BioDiversity4All, everyone will be able to contribute with species records, increasing knowledge about campus diversity and assessing trends in a climate change scenario. At the same time, in a growing context of urban areas, public green spaces are nowadays fundamental for the quality of life of the populations and appear as a necessity for the healthy ecological balance of the urban environment.

At the same time, in a context of continued expansion of cities, public green spaces are nowadays fundamental for the quality of life of the populations and appear as a necessity for the healthy ecological balance of the urban environment. In this context, the projects aim to apply the concept of sustainability in FCUL's green spaces by characterizing and improving the green spaces of the campus.

We would love to count on your support and collaboration in the implementation of the project. Please, install the iNaturalist app in your mobile phone, join the +Biodiversidade@Ciências project and start registering species! You can also follow us in Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to find out more about the project and to stay up-to-date about the next initiatives.

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Funding Institution:

FCUL.

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Partners:

Núcleo de Estudantes de Biologia da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa.

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