Research line: Global change and biodiversity conservation
The “Global Change and Biodiversity conservation” line of research of Doñana Biological Station - CSIC employs a multidisciplinary approach to study the connections between anthropogenic change, its impact on biodiversity and the conservation strategies adopted to manage such impact. This extremely broad research line incorporates research groups that: (1) examine and forecast the demographic impact of global change on threatened species, populations and assemblages; (2) analyze macroscale patterns in ecosystem functioning, conservation biogeography and biodiversity impacts and threats; and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation, such as the efficacy of protected areas, ecological management and restoration, including rewilding and adaptive management.
The studies conducted at the institute tackle an extremely wide number of anthropogenic threats. These range from large-scale drivers, such as climate change, chemical contamination, biological invasions, infectious diseases and habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation, to more localized factors affecting a more restricted range of species, such as wildlife harvest, human-wildlife conflicts, the pet trade, electrocution, or wind-farm and traffic collisions. The study systems cover all continents and most bioregions and ecosystems, from arctic to tropical and from forested, to aquatic to urban. The target taxa range widely, from plants (especially invasive and crop species), to invertebrates (especially pollinators, vectors of infectious diseases and invasive species), to all major vertebrate groups of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, including humans. Overall, this line of research integrates elements of biogeography, demography, genetics, ecophysiology, landscape ecology and conservation biology to provide society with solutions improving the resilience of biodiversity to growing anthropogenic impacts.
