By Sanya Khetani-Shah, Tue, 17/11/2015 - 17:27
Compiling data from eight years of boat-based surveys, five years of coastal censuses, the national coastal bird count and a citizen science project, the Atlas of Marine Birds of Portugal is finally here to guide us through Portuguese waters, roughly one quarter of the European seas.
The atlas, prepared by SPEA (BirdLife in Portugal) and its partners, covers the entire national territory and the status of 65 marine species. For 50 ‘main’ species, the atlas gathers detailed factsheets on their distribution, movements and phenology, abundance and population trends, ecology and habitat and threats, and conservation through more than 500 modelling species distribution maps or by time of year and geographic region. Both the Madeira and Azores archipelagos are included in the maps.
This book also compiles information about the historical aspects of marine ornithology in Portugal and bird conservation, and presents a broad outline of the composition and dynamics of seabird communities and their breeding colonies in Portuguese territory.
This atlas is thus the most comprehensive compilation to date of data on the distribution and abundance of seabirds and shorebirds that use Portuguese waters. It is a considerable leap forward in our knowledge of European seabirds and helps plug our information gaps on life in our seas.
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