Today I defended my thesis in Conservation Biology at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, supervised by Prof. Rui Rebelo - "Impacts of Procambarus clarkii (Girard, 1852) on the macrophyte community of Mediterranean temporary ponds - an experimental approach".
A big thanks to all that helped me setting up the structures at the ponds, collecting and trapping crayfish and running the experiments in the lab!
Typically, Mediterranean temporary ponds dry during summer and autumn. Just before the first rains, we mounted an artificial barrier in the ponds, creating two compartments. During spring we released crayfish in one of the compartments to assess their impact on the macrophyte community and compare the results with our experimental findings.
We used hundreds of crayfish in both the field and the lab experiments. A lot of work to collect them, fun work!
At the lab, I was running feeding trials, measuring the consumption and fragmentation of macrophyte species from Mediterranean temporary ponds.
