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Research projects and ideas

Temporary waters have considerable significance to ecology, are among the most endangered due to their small size and shallowness (Collinson et al. 1995). These habitats represent convenient systems to study ecological concepts, particularly because they are amenable to manipulation experiments, and their abundance allow easy replication. Further, they contain many species important to global biodiversity (Williams, 2006),

 

- Such areas are considered to be concentrations of biodiversity not only on the spot but associated to the surroundings (Maltchik, 2000).

- They are of great importance as predictors insofar as they represent the first image of what could happen to aquatic ecosystems in wetter regionswith the advent and establishment of climate change and extreme droughts.

- Intermittent aquatic ecosystems are endowed with three positive attributes: water, biodiversity and productivity (Maltchik, 2000), each of the greatest importance for biological conservation.

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In the Mediterranean region of the Europe, the temporary ponds were included as a Priority Habitat for the EU (Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC). Within this context, our objective is promote the large scale, multidisciplinary projects shaped around international collaboration and  the conservation of the temporary habitats across the world.

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Arch lagoon (Namibe desert)

GENERAL PROVISIONS

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  1. Sampling and analysis in situwith long-term time frames(10-year scales and above).

  2. Implementation of experiments to identify climate change impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, especially small, shallow, aquatic ecosystems that predominate in the landscape worldwide.Example: temperature increase registrations and simulations of extreme conditions based on IPCC reports verifying how change could interfere in the quality of available water.

  3. Establishing what the pre-impact conditions were through studies in areas suchas Paleo-limnology (ten-year or hundred-year scales).

  4. Mitigation of environmental impacts associated to eutrophication.

  5. Understanding interactions present within biological communities and their relations to local, regional and global factors.

  6. Assessment of climate change effects on sustainability and resilience of populations associated to semi-arid regions.

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