As previously announced Miguel Araújo won the 2018 Pessoa Prize. This is the first time the Prize recognises someone working in the field of environmental sciences. Named after the famous writer and poet Fernando Pessoa, the Pessoa Prize is recognised as the most important cultural award in Portugal. It was created in 1987 by the newspaper Expresso and the IT company Unisys, and since 2008 the . . . [ Read More ]
Standards for distribution models in biodiversity assessments
https://youtu.be/iS31WaKMW_Y Would you have your cancer treatment be defined by one doctor supported by the opinion of two additional referees? Surely, you would hope the treatment to follow best practice standards reached by consensus among several doctors working in the field. Surprisingly, no such standards exist in models entering biodiversity assessments, but we now provide such . . . [ Read More ]
Miguel Araújo awarded the 2018 Ernst Haeckel Prize
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist, and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms including ecology. It comes with no surprise that the European Ecological . . . [ Read More ]
Networks of global bird invasion altered by regional trade ban
In 2005, the European Union imposed a ban in trade of wild exotic species as part of a package to control the sprea d of avian flu into the Continent. In a paper published in Science Advances we demonstrate that the ban reduced fluxes of trade in about 90%, from 1.3 million to 130 thousand birds traded. This mighty achievement had non predicted consequences: the market adjusted and new . . . [ Read More ]
Species on the move will change everything
Climate change is causing geographical redistribution of plant and animal species globally. These distributional shifts are leading to new ecosystems and ecological communities, changes that will affect human society. In a recent article published in Science, we review current and future impacts and assess their implications for sustainable development goals. Access to the original article can . . . [ Read More ]
sdm R – New platform for species distributions modelling
Ecography has just published a new software not article by Babak Naimi and Miguel Araújo featuring the new sdm R platform for species distributions modelling. Sdm R is an object-oriented, reproducible and extensible, platform for running models of species distribtions. It uses individual species and community-based approaches, enabling ensembles of models to be fitted and evaluated, to project . . . [ Read More ]