Maria Blasi Romero

I am a landscape ecologist with a solid background in biodiversity and pollinators. I have a great interest in understanding current environmental challenges and their interaction with biodiversity, to support nature protection and human wellbeing. I am also interested in science-policy interface.

About my research

I am currently working on the project “Mitigating negative effects of land-use intensity in small-scale land-sparing strategies for farmland biodiversity conservation”. The project aims to investigate the extent to which the biodiversity conservation value of semi-natural grasslands is affected by the intensity of agricultural land use in surrounding landscapes, and if any negative impact of intensive land use is moderated by local grassland quality and/or landscape structure. To find out, we combine remote sensing tools, modelling, and an extensive fieldwork season to 45 Swedish pastures in Scania to collect biodiversity data on flowering plants, bumblebees, solitary bees, and hoverflies.

In my PhD (2017-2021), I studied the effects of climate change and land use change on wild bees. I looked at historical bee phenology patterns across Sweden, developed models to try to find common processes driving pollinator densities across Europe, and studied the effects that extreme climate events can have on bee population dynamics and ecosystem services. During my PhD, I combined the use of field observations of bumblebees, long-term museum, and citizen data, with statistical modelling and spatially explicit modelling.

During my PhD I was part of the research environment BECC, and the Uncertainty and Evidence Lab. I have been part of ClimBEco Graduate Research School (2017–2019) and BIOECONOMY Graduate Research School (2017–2018).

I have been teaching about landscape ecology, international conventions on biodiversity, and ecosystem functions and services at the Master Course "Conservation Biology" from Lund University (during 2017-2021).

About me

I have a PhD in Environmental Sciences from Lund University, I did my undergraduate studies in Biology at the University of Barcelona (Spain), and I have an MSc in Conservation Biology from Lund University.

I have previously worked on projects in academic and non-academic environments, including the University of Agricultural Science in Sweden (SLU), Lund University, and the International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN), where I focused on terrestrial protected areas in the Mediterranean basin.

I love outreach events and getting involved in bringing science to the general public, for example, I have also been collaborating in a science outreach blog Crónicas de un Amonite (cronicasdeunamonite.wordpress.com/author/mariablasi). I am part of the Young Ecosystem Services Specialists (YESS) network, and together with the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN), I enjoyed fruitful collaborations writing reports or organizing Science-Policy discussions.