Ana López Antia about biodiversity conversation & her fieldwork for Case Study 2A
Ana López Antia (CSIC)
What is the key takeaway SYBERAC offers the public?
“I believe the most important aspect of SYBERAC is that it highlights the need to improve the current risk assessment system for pollutants and terrestrial biodiversity by making it more holistic and breaking down silos. SYBERAC proposes and tests several tools to achieve this, through its case studies and collaboration with WP3 (modellers). At the same time, each case study addresses a specific and complex issue, such as risk assessment for migratory birds, bats, amphibians, or scavenger birds.”
How might this project's findings and tools aid biodiversity conservation?
“From the perspective of my specific research, I believe that improving the assessment of both the risks (prospective) and the effects (retrospective) of pesticides on biodiversity is essential to halt the biodiversity loss currently occurring in agricultural areas. In this context, the proposed field project serves as an example of a post-registration monitoring study, helping us understand the real impact of various compounds over several months and across multiple taxa, as well as how landscape characteristics and other agricultural practices influence these effects. I firmly believe that post-registration monitoring should be urgently incorporated into the risk assessment system.”
“Specifically this type of field study plays a crucial role in developing predictive models for prospective risk assessment. They help identify the key ecological data that must be included in the models and provide the necessary information to calibrate and validate them.”
What are your role-specific tasks within the project?
“I am the leader of Case Study 2A. In this role, I designed and planned the case study and am now executing some parts of the work while supervising a PhD student working on it. In addition to tasks directly related to the case study (WP2), I am also collaborating with other work packages (WPs) to achieve the milestones and maximise the potential of the SYBERAC network.”
“Improving the assessment of both the risks and the effects of pesticides on biodiversity is essential to halt the biodiversity loss currently occurring in agricultural areas.”
What was a memorable moment or significant breakthrough from your fieldwork?
“Recently, I started working with bats, but I also love birds. I remember seeing more than 400 individuals from 13 species in a 3-hectare rice field (great for me, though probably not for the rice producer). I also smile when I remember that, on certain days, we had to wear our raincoats (in July and without rain) and a mosquito net over our faces to avoid massive mosquito bites while doing invertebrate sampling. Finally, one day I didn’t set the handbrake properly, and the car ended up in the rice field. Fortunately, nothing happened to it”
Ana López Antia’s car escaped to a rice field during fieldwork environmental risk assessment.
Ana López Antia and her colleague with mosquito protection during fieldwork for SYBERAC case study 2A.
