Danilo RUSSO - CLIMBATS Action Chair
Universit脿 degli Studi di Napoli Federico, IIvia Universit脿 100, Italy, Portici
Prof. Danilo Russo is an associate professor of Ecology at Naples University Federico II and an honorary member at the University of Bristol, UK. His interests include habitat selection, resource partitioning, sensory ecology, social behaviour, evolutionary biology, biogeography, and invasion ecology.
Much of his research focuses on bats but he also works on a range of other model organisms to answer the specific questions he is interested in. Since 2019 he has been chairing the Scientific Committee of the UNEP/EUROBATS Agreement (i.e. the Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats). Prof. Russo proudly serves as the editor-in-chief of the top-ranking zoological journal Mammal Review. He is also the main proposer and the chair of the Management Committee of the EU COST Action 鈥淐LIMBATS鈥� (CA18107).
Prof. Russo has published ca 150 scientific articles in internationally respected journals including Nature Communications, Current Biology, Ecology Letters, and Biological Reviews, and has an Hindex = 41. He has conducted fieldwork in many regions and environments across the globe, from African rainforests to Israeli desert and European beech woodlands.
Adri脿 L脫PEZ-BAUCELLS - Working Group 2 Vice-coordinator
Natural Sciences Museum of Granollersc/Palaud脿ries, 102. Jardins Antoni Jonch Cuspinera, Spain, Granollers
Dr. Adri脿 L贸pez-Baucells completed his PhD at the University of Lisbon in 2018. During his doctorate he studied the effects of Amazonian rainforest fragmentation on tropical bats using autonomous ultrasound detectors. He has lately been focused on the 鈥榮oundscape鈥� exploration (the landscape of sounds that exist in nature) in order to promote sustainable land use. Nonetheless, his main area of interest has always been bat ecology and conservation worldwide, particularly with the most severely threatened species and habitats.
He started working with bats at the Natural Science Museum of Granollers (Catalonia) in 2005, where he met his first mentors, who rapidly introduced him to the intimate secrets of the bat world. Since then, he has collaborated on numerous international bat conservation projects shaping his scientific knowledge and background. As a bat researcher, he has always been determined to find applied, clear solutions to the current threats that bats are seriously facing all over the world. After 5 years of bat research in Europe, in 2010, he concluded his BSc with a final project on bats in Colombia, his first contact with Neotropical species. Afterwards, he jumped to Sydney (Australia) to carry out his MSc thesis studying competitive behavior between flying foxes. And more recently, he has also joined quite a few bat-related expeditions in North Africa, Kenya and Madagascar, where he has finally become a National Geographic Explorer.
As a National Geographic Explorer he is establishing a new project based in Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world, totally dependent of subsistence rice agriculture, with big problems of harvest loss, and heavily threatened endemic bat populations due to the vast deforestation. Because bats are known to be excellent pest controllers Adri脿 will work to assess the effectiveness of bats as pest suppressors in rural areas using bat boxes and field experiments while promoting bat conservation amongst local villagers and farmers.
He is also now leading a young research group in the Natural Science Museum of Granollers focused on bat research and conservation, the study of habitat connectivity, loss and fragmentation, all under the umbrella of applied ecology, with special emphasis on the use of technology for conservation such as bioacoustics.
Clare MIFSUD - Conservation Biology Research Group, University of Malta, Msida, Malta
Dr Clare Marie Mifsud completed her PhD in 2021 with the Conservation Biology Research Group (CBRG-UM) under the supervision of Prof Adriana Vella based at the University of Malta. Clare started her work with bats in Malta in bioacoustics, using hand-held bat detectors while walking line transects to study the habitat use by bats and later using mist-netting to capture bats and record hand-release bat calls to build the first bat call library of bats from Malta. Her work also involved the development of automatic identification techniques of bat calls using artificial neural networks to improve the processing of bat acoustic recordings as a way to create an efficient monitoring method of bats in Malta.
Clare is interested in the conservation of bats in Malta through research and awareness. Her research interest is more specifically aimed at understanding the foraging ecology of bat species within the Maltese landscape, in order to understand their role within the ecosystem and hence assist in increasing public awareness on their importance. With this aim in mind, her research also involved the use of DNA barcoding and metabarcoding to link the echolocation studies with local bat species, their diet species and habitat use.
She has joined in bat hibernation surveys held abroad, such as in Poland, and has contributed to several bat workshops. She is also actively involved in increasing public awareness on the need for bat conservation in Malta by reaching various platforms, such as local media, exhibitions and festivals through a local NGO, the Biological Conservation Research Foundation (BICREF). She has enthusiastically trained numerous BICREF interns and CBRG-UM undergraduates in bat and insect monitoring methods.
Adriana VELLA - CLIMBATS Management Committee Member
Conservation Biology Research Group, Department of Biology, University of Malta, Msida, Malta
Prof Adriana Vella is an Associate Professor at the Department of Biology, University of Malta. She has been active in conservation and biodiversity research for the past 25 years, and has worked on a range of species, including mammals, such as bats, hedgehogs and cetaceans. Her field and laboratory research has expanded knowledge of the conservation and molecular genetics of species from the Maltese Islands. She has also supervised numerous research projects at the University of Malta, focusing on bats and other fauna since 1998. The various projects have covered distribution surveys for all species using bat acoustic recognition, roost surveys, and molecular genetics to identify and study these species genetically. Adriana is also active in conservation awareness and founded the Non-governmental Organisation Biological Conservation Research Foundation (BICREF), to facilitate voluntary work on vulnerable species and habitats in Malta and beyond.
Dr Lia Gilmour is the Interim Head of Science and Monitoring at BCT (job share with Sarah Scott) and her work includes development and delivery of the BCT Science and Monitoring Strategies. Before joining BCT, Lia worked as a post-doctoral research assistant in the Bat Conservation and Research lab at the University of the West of England (UWE), on a diverse range of projects in the fields of human-wildlife interactions and the crossover with bioacoustics, landscape ecology and conservation. Lia completed a research masters in 2014, which was supervised by Professor Gareth Jones at the University of Bristol and Dr Kate Barlow at the BCT and involved habitat suitability modelling for Bechstein鈥檚 bat in Britain using BCT data and investigations into an acoustic bat lure. Lia also completed her PhD at the University of Bristol, supervised by Professor Gareth Jones, Dr Marc Holderied (BASE Lab) and Dr Simon Pickering (Ecotricity). Her project focused on evaluating bat deterrence methods and the development of a thermal bat tracking system.
Philip BRIGGS - Monitoring Manager at BCT
Philip joined the Bat Conservation Trust (BCT) in 2003 and has been involved in the voluntary conservation sector since 1998. Throughout his time at BCT, Philip has worked within the National Bat Monitoring Programme (NBMP) team, initially in the role of Survey Coordinator and then project manager of the programme. Beginning in 1996, the NBMP is the longest-running multi-species mammal monitoring programme in the UK, and has proved an inspiration for other citizen science bat monitoring programmes globally. Philip got involved in bat conservation through the volunteer route rather than academia, first developing an interest in bats and gaining bat survey and public engagement experience through voluntary work with the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. He develops and delivers training on bat detecting and sound analysis and has contributed to a number of books on the subject.
