Ana Sofia Vaz

NBI - Natural Business Intelligence

Interdisciplinarity is needed to gain knowledge of the ecology of invasive species and invaded ecosystems, and of the human dimensions of biological invasions. We combine a quantitative literature review with a qualitative historical narrative to document the progress of interdisciplinarity in invasion science since 1950. Our review shows that 92.4...

In their review, Dickinson and Hobbs (2017) ensemble a set of critiques on the notion, characteristics, and challenges of cultural ecosystem services (CES) and respective research. Concurrently, Costanza et al. (2017) provide a throughout overview on the last ''Twenty years of ecosystem services". Inspired by their narratives, we advance thought on...

Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969718322101

There is growing interest in ecosystem disservices, i.e. the negative effects of ecosystems on humans. The focus on disservices has been controversial because of the lack of clarity on how to disentangle ecosystem services and disservices related to human wellbeing. A perspective that considers both services and disservices is needed to inform obje...

1. Many invasive alien species gradually become embedded within local cultures. Such species can increasingly be perceived by society as familiar and native elements of the social-ecological system and as integral parts of local cultures. 2. Here, we explore this phenomenon and define it as cultural inception. Cultural inception can greatly hinder...

Reservoirs fulfil several societal needs, including water storage, energy production, flood control and recreation. However, the interruption of the river continuum may cause water quality declines that compromise water use. The surrounding landscape is a key driver of water quality variation in space and time, both across and within catchments. Th...

Rivers offer cultural ecosystem services (CES) that improve people's quality of life. Advancements in computing and data storage have primarily focused on terrestrial CES, neglecting riverine areas. This study aims to develop a methodology to assess CES in riverine landscapes from social media and citizen science images related to environmental inf...

For centuries, non-native tree (NNT) species have been planted throughout Europe for ecosystem services including timber and urban greenery. Public interest in NNTs has recently increased due to their potential role in climate change adaptation as alternatives to vulnerable native forest tree species. However, opinions regarding the benefits and ri...

Protected areas (PAs) play a vital role in the conservation of natural and cultural heritage while supporting local livelihoods. However, in Brazil, where limited resources and poor effectiveness lead to negative sentiments and are leveraged as criticism towards PAs, it is necessary to better comprehend public perceptions of Brazilian PAs and ident...

Deep learning has advanced the content analysis of digital data, unlocking opportunities for detecting, mapping, and monitoring invasive species. Here, we tested the ability of open source classification and object detection models (i.e., convolutional neural networks: CNNs) to identify and map the invasive plant Cortaderia selloana (pampas grass)...

Online digital data from media platforms have the potential to complement biodiversity monitoring efforts. We propose a strategy for integrating these data into current biodiversity datasets in light of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

In the face of the global biodiversity crisis, collecting comprehensive data and making the best use of existing data are becoming increasingly important to understand patterns and drivers of environmental and biological phenomena at different scales. Here we address the concept of secondary data, which refers to additional information unintentiona...

Nature's contributions to people (NCP) are contributions of natural capital to people's quality of life, being at the center of political and societal concern. There is an increasing recognition of businesses' responsibility toward conservation and responsible use of natural capital. In this exploratory study, we identified gains of corporate inves...

Freshwater ecosystems host high levels of biodiversity but are also highly vulnerable to biological invasions. Aquatic Invasive Alien Plant Species (aIAPS) can cause detrimental effects on freshwater ecosystems and their services to society, raising challenges to decision-makers regarding their correct management. Spatially and temporally explicit...

E-commerce has become a booming market for wildlife trafficking, as online platforms are increasingly more accessible and easier to navigate by sellers, while still lacking adequate supervision. Artificial intelligence models, and specifically deep learning, have been emerging as promising tools for the automated analysis and monitoring of digital...

Invasive alien species are a major driver of global environmental change. Escalating globalization processes such as international trade and long-distance transport have contributed to an increase in the ecological, economic, and sociocultural impacts of biological invasions. As a result, their management has become an increasingly relevant topic o...

Monitoring the progress parties have made toward meeting global biodiversity targets requires appropriate indicators. The recognition of invasive alien species (IAS) as a biodiversity threat has led to the development of specific targets aiming at reducing their prevalence and impact. However, indicators for adequately monitoring and reporting on t...

Identification of ecosystem services, i.e. the contributions that ecosystems make to human well-being, has proven instrumental in galvanising public and political support for safeguarding biodiversity and its benefits to people. Here we synthe-sise the global evidence on ecosystem services provided and disrupted by freshwater bivalves, a heterogeno...

During the last decades, remote sensing has changed the way humans observe and understand the Earth system. The repeated and increasingly detailed observations made from satelliteSatellite platforms and other remote sensing procedures have revolutionized research, particularly in the atmospheric and oceanographic sciences but also in the biophysica...

Crowdsourced social media data has become popular for assessing cultural ecosystem services (CES). Nevertheless, social media data analyses in the context of CES can be time consuming and costly, particularly when based on the manual classification of images or texts shared by people. The potential of deep learning for automating the analysis of cr...

The Yellow-legged hornet (Vespa velutina nigrithorax), native to regions of Southeast Asia, was accidentally introduced in Europe, South Korea, and Japan, where is has often become invasive. Due to its potential negative impacts at ecologic, economic and social levels, this hornet was included in the “Union list” of the EU legislation for invasive...

The potential supply of ecosystem services is often assessed using land cover data. Assessment of actual use of ecosystem services by beneficiaries remains less covered and is often assumed to be congruent with potential supply. However, we believe that to contribute to the sustainable management of multifunctional landscapes, more insights are nee...

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused immense social and economic costs worldwide. Most experts endorse the view that the virus has a zoonotic origin with the final spillover being associated with wildlife trade. Besides human consumption, wild animals are also extensively traded as pets. Information on zoonotic diseases has been reported to reduce co...

Significance Statement Reconciling nature conservation and cultural ecosystem services (CES) has become fundamental to manage mountain protected areas. The timely monitoring of CES opportunities at large scales is therefore a pressing need. We combined social media data and Earth observations (EO) into a multi model inference framework to assess CE...

Genetic miscegenation was historically perceived as a maladaptive process or even an imperfection of nature. However, through adaptive introgression, some species can share genes associated with well-adapted traits. Current scientific perceptions on the benefits of adaptive introgression can help to clarify how these paradoxes condition scientific...

How institutional stakeholders perceive the supply and demand of ecosystem services (ES) under distinct contexts determines which planning actions are deemed priority or not. Public officers play a crucial role in social-ecological management and decision-making processes, but there is a paucity of research exploring their perceptions on ES supply...

Climate change is expected to have strong social-ecological implications, with global but especially regional and local challenges. To assess the climatic vulnerability of a given territory, it is necessary to evaluate its exposure to climate change and its adaptive capacity. This study describes the development of an Action Plan for Adapting to Cl...

Securing biodiversity values alongside ecosystem services and other socioeconomic assets, is a priority in the European policy and territorial planning. Here, we design a landscape planning approach that identifies priority conservation areas and informs on their ecosystem services' potential in the context of a legally binding spatial planning ins...

Monitoring the progress parties have made toward meeting global biodiversity targets requires appropriate indicators. The recognition of Invasive alien species (IAS) as a biodiversity threat has led to the development of specific targets aiming at reducing their prevalence and impact. However, indicators for adequately monitoring and reporting on t...

Crowdsourced social media data has become popular in the assessment of cultural ecosystem services (CES). Advances in deep learning show great potential for the timely assessment of CES at large scales. Here, we describe a procedure for automating the assessment of image elements pertaining to CES from social media. We focus on a binary (natural, h...

The Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) was established to promote and provide guidance toward a global observation network on biodiversity and ecosystems for decision makers and the scientific community. Here we comment on three key challenges in the development and implementation of monitoring schemes and indica...

Invasive alien plants negatively impact ecosystems, necessitating intricate management actions. In a critically endangered vegetation type within the fynbos biome of South Africa, a study was performed comparing different management interventions over plots invaded by Acacia saligna. A dynamic modelling approach was designed to analyze field data a...

The supply of ecosystem services is largely determined by changes in land use and cover. Here, we analysed how the supply and interactions among four ecosystem services have evolved over five decades in a mountain biosphere reserve largely dominated by human land uses. We modelled pastures for livestock, crop production, aquifer recharge and erosio...

Monitoring visitor dynamics and their nature-based experiences is an important dimension in the conservation management of protected areas. In the current digital age, the content analysis of social media information is being increasingly used in such a context. However, research testing whether social media content analysis provides similar inform...

This dataset provides crowd-sourced and georeferenced information useful for the assessment of cultural ecosystem services in the Sierra Nevada Biosphere Reserve (southern Spain). Data were collected within the European project ECOPOTENTIAL focused on Earth observations of ecosystem services. The dataset comprises 778 records expressing the results...

This dataset provides crowd-sourced and georeferenced information useful for the assessment of cultural ecosystem services in the Sierra Nevada Biosphere Reserve (southern Spain). Data were collected within the European project ECOPOTENTIAL focused on Earth observations of ecosystem services. The dataset comprises 778 records expressing the results...

In the “digital conservation” age, big data from Earth observations and from social media have been increasingly used to tackle conservation challenges. Here, we combined information from those two digital sources in a multimodel inference framework to identify, map, and predict the potential for nature's cultural contributions to people in two con...

Humans act as drivers for the introduction of non-native trees. Some non-native species may become invasive and cause undesirable impacts, thereby motivating targeted decision-making and management actions. Australian acacias (or wattles; genus Acacia subgenus Phyllodineae) have been introduced worldwide, offering both opportunities and risks for l...

Wildlife trade is a profitable economic activity. Birds are among the most heavily traded animals worldwide, with numerous species threatened by pet trade. Information on both legal and illegal aspects of trade and consumer demand is difficult to obtain across different countries, particularly given substantial socio-economic and cultural variation...

In their recent perspective paper, Pausas and Keeley (2019) present “wildfires as an ecosystem service”, summarizing both the evolutionary and socioecological benefits generated by wildfires to humankind. While we acknowledge the evolutionary and socioecological importance of fire, we argue that referring to (wild)fire as an “ecosystem service” is...

Coastal sand dunes are dynamic ecosystems, with vegetation and biota responding to continuous changes in its typical environmental severity. Understanding vegetation patterns is relevant to early detect shifts in prevailing coastal dynamics and to refine monitoring strategies, especially in secondary sand dunes, which are under legal protection in...

Understanding how non-material benefits from ecosystems, known as cultural services, are shaped by non-native biota is paramount to manage biological invasions and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite recent advances, assessments of cultural services still lack an explicit temporal dimension, which is relevant for developing mo...

The conversion of natural and semi-natural forests into plantations is an increasing trend across European landscapes under abandonment. In Northwest Iberian Peninsula, current land use changes, namely neglected management (or even abandonment) of maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) and blue gum eucalypt (Eucalyptus globulus) stands by individual landow...

Code and data used in Castro-Diez et al. (2019). Global effects of non-native tree species on multiple ecosystem services. Biological Reviews. https://doi.org/10.21950/EGM8SE

Non-native tree (NNT) species have been transported worldwide to create or enhance services that are fundamental for human well-being, such as timber provision, erosion control or ornamental value; yet NNTs can also produce undesired effects, such as fire proneness or pollen allergenicity. Despite the variety of effects that NNTs have on multiple e...

Identifying the key factors driving invasion processes is crucial for designing and implementing appropriate management strategies. In fact, the importance of (model-based) prevention and early detection was highlighted in the recent European Union regulation on Invasive Alien Species. Models based on abundance estimates for different age/size clas...

Alien plant species have been essential for farming and agro-forestry systems and for their supply of food, fiber, tannins, resins or wood from antiquity to the present. They also contributed to supporting functions and regulating services (water, soil, biodiversity) and to the design of landscapes with high cultural and scenic value. Some of those...

https://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/bitstream/10216/116555/2/297027.pdf

Non-native tree species are widely used in forest plantations and agroforestry systems worldwide for their often-high productivity and performance compared to native trees. In addition, they have been and are introduced and used for multiple reasons, such as gardening, protective functions, arboreta, erosion control and for increasing the forest ar...

Human perceptions of nature and the environment are increasingly being recognised as important for environmental management and conservation. Understanding people's perceptions is crucial for understanding behaviour and developing effective management strategies to maintain, preserve and improve biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being...

Tendo em conta os impactes económicos, ecológicos e sociais das espécies invasoras já dispersas no território nacional é crucial um forte investimento para prevenir a entrada de novas espécies (potencialmente) invasoras e detetar precocemente novos focos de invasão de forma a promover uma gestão eficaz e atempada que limite novas invasões biológica...

Limitations in the assessment of cultural ecosystem services through quantifiable approaches have constrained our knowledge of how these services can be altered by drivers of global change, such as non-native tree species. Here, we address this caveat by evaluating the effects of non-native tree species, in comparison to native ones, on several cat...

Introduction: Pneumothorax represents the existence of air in the pleural space and can, in extreme cases, lead to pulmonary failure. It is a rare entity on pediatrics. Due to its broad clinical presentation and prognosis pediatricians must be aware of it and prepared to manage it. Purpose: To characterize the patients, disease, treatment and out...

Regime shift' has emerged as a key concept in the environmental sciences. The concept has roots in complexity science and its ecological applications, and is increasingly applied to intertwined social and ecological phenomena. Yet what exactly is a regime shift? We explore this question at three nested levels. First, we propose a broad, contingent,...

Invasive species are increasing in number, extent and impact worldwide. Effective invasion management has thus become a core socio-ecological challenge. To tackle this challenge, integrating spatial-temporal dynamics of invasion processes with modelling approaches is a promising approach. The inclusion of dynamic processes in such modelling framewo...

Climate and land-use changes are among the most relevant determinants of future persistence of rare plant species in rural landscapes. We analysed the structure of populations of a rare plant, Narcissus pseudonarcissus subsp. nobilis, and of their respective plant communities against several environmental variables (climate-, topography-, land-use-...

Ecological monitoring programmes are designed to detect and measure changes in biodiversity and ecosystems. In the case of biological invasions, they can contribute to anticipating risks and adaptively managing invaders. However, monitoring is often expensive because large amounts of data might be needed to draw inferences. Thus, careful planning i...

Coastal sand-dunes of northern Portugal are dynamic ecosystems under natural and human disturbances. Still, they constitute an interesting subject for ecological research, since they spread over a main biogeographic transition between the Eurosiberian and the Mediterranean regions. Despite the awareness of lichen contribution to grey dune stability...

Abstract Background: Coastal dunes are dynamic ecosystems, with vegetation seen as a key element in the response to a continuously changing environment. Aims: We explored co-occurrence patterns of plant species within dune ecosystems along a regional climatic and a local sea–inland gradient. Methods: Five habitat types were surveyed along a sea–...

A narrow relationship between marine resources and local populations always existed in fishing communities of coastal areas. In the Portuguese estuaries bait fishing is a common practice in which gatherers collect intertidal species such as seaworms, shrimps, crabs or clams. In recent Local Natural Reserve of Douro Estuary (RNLED) this activity is...