A look back at the Colloquium of natural heritage, biodiversity and evolution

The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) supports the activities of the National Museum of Natural History “natur musée” and more precisely of it scientific research centre. In this framework, LIST participated in the annual meeting of scientific collaborator – Colloquium of natural heritage, biodiversity and evolution, organised by the “natur musée” on the 18th of March 2017 at the Neumünster Abbey Cultural Center.

This was the 34th edition of the colloquium that aims to bring together and promote an exchange between specialists from all walks of life. This meeting usually gathers scientific collaborators who present the most recent results of their scientific research projects. A wide range of themes are covered, ranging from issues in the realm of geology/paleontology to ecological studies.

LIST was represented by one of its fellow researchers in the environmental domain, Lisette Cantú-Salazar, who made an oral presentation on the topic “Potential of species distribution models for supporting conservation and management decision-making”. See the full abstract on www.mnhn.lu.

The aim of her presentation was to talk about the usefulness of models that predict the geographic distributions of species as support tools for decision-makers in biodiversity conservation. These models statistically relate variables describing environmental conditions with existing species records and use this relationship to predict the suitability of sites where the species has not been sampled or found. Maps showing continuous surfaces indicating the relative likelihood of species occurrence can play a critical role in supporting a range of conservation decisions.

Lisette also introduced the fact that these models have been used in different projects by LIST’s researchers, which can open the door to new collaborations. A few example studies where these models were or are being used as supporting tools in Luxembourg were presented, including predicting the distribution of a set of bird and bat species sensitive to wind turbines, guiding sampling for species of conservation concern and mapping the habitat suitability of butterflies in the context of an updated atlas for Luxembourg.


Photo credit ”natur musée”