PEERS – Platform for Enhancing Ecological Research & Sustainability (Plataforma para o Desenvolvimento da Investigação em Ecologia e Sustentabilidade) Azorean Biodiversity Group (CITA-A) /Grupo da Biodiversidade dos Açores (CITA-A) 2013 Annual Report and 2008-2013 Achievements Angra do Heroísmo & Ponta Delgada, January 2014 1 Azorean Biodiversity Group (CITA-A) /Grupo da Biodiversidade dos Açores (CITA-A) 2013 Annual Report and 2008-2013 Achievements Executive Summary In the end of 2013 the Azorean Biodiversity Group was invited to be part of another FCT center, the CENTRE FOR ECOLOGY, EVOLUTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE (Ce3C), based in Lisbon. Ce3C’s main objective is to perform research that addresses societal challenges in ecology, evolution and the environment—the three Es in the Centre’s name, for the 2015-2020 period covering the EU 2020 Horizon. Our 19 integrated members with Ph.D., plus Ph.D. students and collaborators will be now part of a large research centre, based in Lisbon, with 101 integrated members in which research questions will be addressed at both the continental and insular scales. The ABG had a steady growth in the number of projects, publications and personnel over these last six years (2008-2013), increasing from six integrated members in 2008 to the current 19. In this period 25 senior researchers participated in the ABG —ten with an academic position, one with a research contract, and 14 post-doctoral grant holders. In addition, 23 Ph.D. students and 13 research grant holders worked with the senior researchers. The group also worked with 18 International collaborators acting as Associated Research Fellows in several projects and publications. Main achievements by integrated members in 2013 included 44 publications, 25 of which being in International Indexed Journals with Impact Factor (57%). The mean Impact Factor in 2013 was 3.0, being the publications in high Impact Factor Journals (IF > 3.0) in the¸ area of Environmental Sciences - Ecology, corresponding to. 38% of the ISI publications (a total of 9 papers). Overall 357 publications were published between 2008 and 2013. The Integrated Members of Azorean Biodiversity Group published 131 ISI papers between 2008-2013, with an impact factor of up to 9,737 (PNAS paper). 2 Particularly relevant is the fact that those publications in high Impact Factor Journals (IF > 3.0¸ area Environmental Sciences - Ecology), equate to c. 35% of the ISI publications (a total of 45 papers). In the period 2008-2013, other main achievements included the publication of seven authored Books and nine edited Books, 67 books chapters, 46 outreach publications, 39 papers in peer- reviewed journals with no impact factor, 20 papers in Proceedings of Symposia, seven publications online and an additional 31 other type of publications. In these last six years the Azorean Biodiversity Group was substructured along several main research lines to achieve their integrated goals: i) species distribution and abundance (mainly bryophytes, arthropods and vascular plants) at different scales, performing multi-level evaluation of species extinction risk; ii) cave biodiversity and evolution, namely organisms that inhabit the extensive underground habitats of volcanic islands; iii) invasiveness and invasibility, investigating why some organisms are more prone to become established in the Azores, using ladybirds as model group; iv) ecological processes underlying small agro-ecosystems functioning in the islands in order to explore the use of autochthonous arthropods as natural crop protection and forestry resources; v) taxonomy, distribution, physiology and ecology of Azorean bryophytes; vi) unified theory of island biodiversity under the framework “General Dynamic Model of Island Biogeography” (GDM); and vii) promote nature conservancy, viii) impacts of environmental risk factors on human health and other island organisms; ix) sustainable development of insular agro-ecosystems and natural ecosystems; x) Integrated Pest Management to control and possibly eradicate the termite pest in island systems; xi) communication and cooperation between the scientific and technological community, decision makers and the general public. In an unprecedented collaboration of more than 200 taxonomists and other scientists the Azorean Biodiversity Group coordinated two accurate and comprehensive lists of terrestrial species in the Azores (Borges et al., 2010) and Madeira - Selvagens (Borges et al., 2008). This unique collaboration was fundamental to create the baseline taxonomic information for updating the taxonomic information, listing synonyms of the species, and quantified the total number of described species in Macaronesia. In this way we contributed to solve in part the ‘Linnaean’ shortfall, i.e. an incomplete taxonomic description of species-level diversity and the ‘Wallacean’ shortfall, i.e., incomplete knowledge of species’ distributions. These lists are now being used for testing biogeographical theories (e.g. SARs; GDM). In the 2008-2013 period, members of Azorean Biodiversity Group participated in about 100 international meetings with (15 Plenary, 87 Oral presentations, 118 Posters) and 66 national conferences (13 Plenary, 59 oral presentations, 45 posters. 3 An interesting indicator for our scientific output is the relative proportion of our production with that of the other research groups based in Azores. In 2011 and 2012 we published respectively 21% and 17% of the scientific output of Azores. This is a remarkable output since we were only about 10% of the researchers publishing in the years of 2010-2012. Fifty six projects run in 2008-2013, 43 of which were coordinated by integrated members: 14 received international funding, 12 received national funding (eight by FCT) and 30 received regional funding (21 by DRCT and nine more projects were funded by other Agencies). These 56 projects brought about 2.390.993,00 Euros to the group. To these projects we must also add the funds obtained for Ph.D. and Pos-Doc Grants, which totalled 1,314.720 Euros in 23 grants (13 Ph.D and 10 Post-Docs). The contribution of Azores regional funds was 51% of the total funds raised by Azorean Biodiversity Group, FCT contributed with 33% and international projects contributed with 16%. Group members performed consulting in the areas of agriculture and urban pest control (particularly related to termites) and taxonomic species identification, particularly for bryophytes, vascular plants and arthropods, and provided tools (images, keys, literature) for species identification on its website, Azorean Biodiversity Portal and SOSTERMITAS. In these last years our team with collaborations with other research groups (e.g. CIBIO-Azores) gathered enough data to overcome seven impediments to the effective protection of island species and test ecological and biogeographical theories for islands: 1) Azorean endemic species (particularly those of invertebrates) and their ecological services are mostly unknown to the general public (the public dilemma). With several initiatives our team is putting endemic species in the local Press agenda. With Azorean Biodiversity Portal (ABP; (http://www.azoresbioportal.angra.uac.pt/)) we are contributing to enhance public knowledge and appreciation of the Azorean biodiversity. ABP provides a wide range of resources that are used to promote students’ autonomy on the elaboration of herbarium projects, by improving their species identification skills and the understanding of higher rank taxonomy, allowing them to compare current published distributions with their observations; after validation, their records are used to feed the database, promoting collaborative work among scientists, teachers and students. 2) Policymakers and stakeholders are mostly unaware of species conservation problems (the political dilemma). By providing unrestricted, detailed information on the distribution and abundance of species, our team is contributing to conservation efforts in the Azores. Government managers frequently consult the team to obtain data on individual species distributions or 4 maps of species richness, and such information has been used to reshape the boundaries of protected areas of the region, both terrestrial and coastal. 3) Basic science on Azorean endemic species is scarce and underfunded (the scientific dilemma). For the first time, there is for a group of islands (Azores) information of quality for a group of arthropods and bryophytes, including taxonomy, natural history data, distribution and abundance data obtained with standardized techniques, information on species traits and also phylogenies of some arthropod genera. Natural history and ecological studies, based on broad sampling programs allows now knowing the species distributions and abundances, how such parameters change in space and time and how these changes relate with ecological change. 4) Most species are undescribed (the Linnean shortfall). In the last twenty years members of Azorean Biodiversity Group demonstrated that the knowledge on Azorean biodiversity was not uniform, and many groups lacked adequate sampling and/ or taxonomic revision. To solve that we performed research on classical (as well as molecular) taxonomy of the most diverse Azorean taxonomic group (arthropods), describing many species of beetles and spiders. Moreover, the web site “Azorean Biodiversity Portal” (http://www.azoresbioportal.angra.uac.pt/) allows everyone to access updated information on Azorean biodiversity. As a direct outcome of this