Spatial Biology Lab

11/03/2026

Another news about Diana Sousa-Guedes PhD:

O trabalho desenvolvido no âmbito do doutoramento em Biologia, de Diana Sousa Guedes, concluiu que o lixo marinho “empurra” os ninhos de tartarugas marinhas para mais perto da linha de …

20/02/2026

https://doi.org/10.1002/oik.11975

20/02/2026

Females of loggerhead turtle Caretta caretta tend to nest closer to the shoreline when marine litter is more abundant. Marine litter contributes to coastal squeeze, reducing nesting habitats. We mapped litter across 40 nesting beach sections on Boa Vista Island, Cabo Verde.

Marine litter is an emerging threat to sea turtle rookeries, yet its effects on nesting behaviour remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigated how macro-litter accumulation on beaches inf...

18/02/2026

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-026-02393-5

18/02/2026

We found a significant decline in habitat suitability over the past two decades in the Montesinho/Nogueira Special Conservation Area (Portugal), impacting all taxonomic groups (vascular flora, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) and ecological functions.

Monitoring biodiversity in protected areas is essential to mitigate biodiversity loss and evaluate the effectiveness of conservation policies. Integrating satellite remote sensing technologies, ecological niche models, and time-series analyses of biodiversity trends offers a fast and robust approach...

13/02/2026

Very proud of our colleague Salvador Arenas Castro

12/02/2026

https://palprox.eu/women-and-girls-in-science-day-perspectives-from-palprox/

Voices, experiences and inspiration from women researchers across the PALPROX consortium

12/02/2026

Our last contribution is a review on correlative ecological niche models' overfitting. We examined diagnostic approaches and evaluated modelling practices related to sampling bias, predictor choice, study area definition, model complexity and regularisation.

Aim To synthesise current understanding of overfitting as a pervasive and often underdiagnosed problem in correlative ecological niche models (ENMs), and to assess its consequences for model interpr...

02/02/2026