S. Silva's research while affiliated with University of Porto and other places

... Land use and land cover changes, particularly land taken by agriculture and urbanization, are transforming the terrestrial environment at unprecedented rates and scales, homogenizing the landscape and threatening biodiversity and ecosystems functions and services (Stoate et al., 2009;Seto et al., 2011). With the expansion of the urban network and the decline of natural ecosystems, urban areas management has a crucial role in preserving and enhancing biodiversity and presents unparalleled opportunities to enhance the urban systems' resilience and ecological functioning (Farinha-Marques et al., 2011;Elmqvist et al., 2015). Conservation of urban grasslands can reduce cities' ecological footprints and ecological debts while enhancing their inhabitants' resilience, health, and quality of life (Gómez-Baggethun and Barton, 2013). ...