At the end of July Moreno visited the Department of Biology at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) in Surabaya, Indonesia. This was a great opportunity to establish cross-cutting collaboration on several biodiversity topics as well as human health topics. The visit was an occasion to meet ITS staff and students, and present some of the research done at the BGC lab. Java is one of the most biodiverse islands on Earth, and faces several challenges for both biodiversity co

Last week, some members of the Biodiversity and Global Change Lab attended the 8th European Congress of Conservation Biology (ECCB 2026) in Leiden, The Netherlands. The congress brought together researchers, policymakers and practitioners from across Europe to share knowledge, exchange ideas and discuss the future of biodiversity conservation. The venue itself was lovely, though the weather turned out to be unusually hot, an alarming reminder of the shifting climate. Luckily,

Last week, Moreno flew to beautiful Plovdiv (Bulgaria) to attend the LifeWatch ERIC Biodiversity & Ecosystem eScience Conference. The conference was a great opportunity to show how far the sRedList platform has come after two and a half years. Moreno gave a talk on "Presenting the sRedList platform for rapid and effective extinction risk assessment", showcasing the key functionalities of the platform for streamlining the work of Red List assessors. In its first two years of l

From June 14th to 16th, the Biodiversity and Global Change Lab went to the beautiful setting of Borrello for our Lab Retreat. It was an incredible three days packed with strategic planning, scientific brainstorming, hands-on workshops, team building activities and a lot of biodiversity sightseeing! The first day we arrived in Borrello for an excursion to the local waterfalls and we had the chance to explore the crayfish reintroduction sites thanks to the guidance of Rewilding

Some members of the BCG Lab team at Sapienza University of Rome (SUR) recently returned from a research mission and academic exchange in Johannesburg, marking an important milestone in the development of new African-European scientific collaborations. The initiative was supported through the CIVIS “Seed Funding for Research Activities and African-European Collaboration” programme, aimed at fostering interdisciplinary partnerships between European and African institutions. Alo

The project Integ@Risk will explore how global environmental change is reshaping the delicate connection between ecosystem integrity, ecosystem functioning and human societies. By studying insect communities across six European mountain landscapes, the project aims to reveal how ecosystem degradation affects environmental and human health. Using a macroecological lens, we will predict how global change is altering some of the key insect-mediated functions as well the circulat

" A standard approach for including climate change responses in IUCN Red List assessments " (by Mancini et al.) has been recognized as one of the top 10 most-cited papers published in Conservation Biology (Wiley) for 2024. This paper was a truly collaborative effort among lab members and IUCN Red List scientists, to address a key gap in current extinction risk assessments which is the lack of a standardized method to measure climate change impact on future population reducti

Last week, Michela and Valerio attended the Student Conference on Conservation Science (SCCS) in Cambridge. The conference proved to be an enriching experience, allowing our PhD students to connect with researchers from diverse universities and nations. It offered a valuable opportunity to engage with a wide array of global conservation issues and localized applications, fostering collaboration and fresh insights into their ongoing work. The event provided a platform for the

On March 26th, the NaturaConnect project hosted the webinar "Navigating Climate Change: Methodologies and Applications for Conservation" . Lab members, Moreno Di Marco, Marta Cimatti and Valerio Mezzanotte , actively participated by presenting cutting-edge insights on climate velocity and magnitude analysis for Europe - drawn from our recent Global Change Biology paper on “ The Accelerating exposure of European Protected Areas to climate change ” (Global Change Biology). With

On March 3rd 2026, the BGC Lab welcomed a distinguished guest: the Federal Minister for Climate Change of Pakistan, Musadik Mashood Malik, accompanied by his undersecretary. The visit provided an opportunity to discuss pressing climate challenges and explore potential ideas for research collaboration. During the meeting, Minister Malik offered an overview of the situation in Pakistan, highlighting the severe impacts the country has been experiencing as a result of climate ch

On February 25th, our PhD student Michela Gabrieli welcomed the second-grade classes of the Falcone Borsellino School for a special visit to the entomological collections of the Zoology Museum at Sapienza. The program included a short introduction to the museum’s historical collections, followed by hands-on educational activities using stereomicroscopes and 3D models derived from X-ray scans of both larval and adult stages of various species. Through these activities, studen

Last month Lara, Andrea and Moreno attended the final INF-ACT annual meeting [ https://inf-act.it/event_roma2025.php ], presenting the results from three years of work. Lara presented here ongoing work on "Modelling the ecological drivers of West Nile virus in Italy" in a poster, introducing a predictive, macroecological approach to model the risk of WNV spillover in humans across Italian municipalities, featuring also her recently published paper on Culex pipiens distribut

Our postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Chiara Dragonetti, recently participated as a teacher at the ManGrowth Summer School ( link ) held in October on Inhaca Island, Mozambique. The ManGrowth project focuses on the study and conservation of the rich biodiversity within the island’s mangrove ecosystems. During her stay, Dr. Dragonetti trained students in the use of camera traps to monitor mammal populations and employed mist nets to capture and study bats. The project’s goal was to

On the 28th of August the new learning module “Scenarios on Climate Change” was launched on the European Nature Academy website, and it...

Last week Marta and Moreno went to the other side of world to attend the 32nd ICCB congress in Brisbane Australia. A total of six...

On June 10th, SCB Italy launched the first round of this year’s BioSpritz initiative —a series of informal yet enriching events designed...

Last week our BGC Lab team packed its bags and headed to L’Aquila for the 2nd Italian Conference for Early Career Researchers in...

" Opportunities and challenges for Common Agricultural Policy reform to support the European Green Deal " has been recognized as one of...

Another conference, another opportunity for the BGC lab to share its exciting research! Just last week, some BGC lab members joined the...

The BGC Lab recently contributed to the "In Praise of Diversity - Journey through Italian Ecosystems" exhibition, focusing on the...