PhD candidate
Curriculum Vitae:
- 2015: Indicators & Assessments Unit (IOZ) and Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research (UCL)
- 2014: Red List authority of the IUCN Spider and Scorpion Specialist Group
- 2013: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
- 2012: Natural History Museum, London
- 2011: National Natural History Museum, Lisbon
- 2010: Biodiversity and genetic resources investigation center (CIBIO), Oporto University
Research interests:
Current Research - Protecting the unknown
The IUCN Red List is the most comprehensive indicator of extinction risks of the world’s biodiversity. However, Red List assessments are costly, time consuming and logistically complex. With current extinction rates, many species may even become extinct before we are able to assess them. Time is therefore of the essence and a pragmatic approach that speeds up the assessment process and provides general trends of extinction across a wider range of taxonomic groups is an urgent endeavour.
The Sampled Red List Index (SRLI) has been proposed as a solution to many of these issues, which is derived from the IUCN Red List Index and aids the measurement of general trends in the extinction risk of large numbers of taxonomic groups, which are broadly representative of global biodiversity. However despite the SRLI being a "sampled" approach our knowledge is still been skewed towards better-known groups, often with reduced species diversity. That is why although several taxonomic groups have been fully assessed by IUCN red list criteria (100% of birds, 99.8% of mammals), since these are low diversity groups, only 4.6% of the world's 1734.831 recorded species have thus far been assessed (IUCN 2015), out of an estimated 8.7 million (Mora et al. 2011) lowering the number of conservation assessments to less than 1% of Earths biodiversity.
My curent research aims to overcome these biases by empirically investigating how to derive the best possible sampling regime to allow Red List assessments to reflect patterns across a number of megadiverse taxa, and establish general trends in the extinction risk over time, specifically assessing the applicability of the current sampling regime of the SRLI using data from a number of completely assessed species groups and use predictive modelling to assess the feasibility of applying this process to megadiverse taxa with limited data availability, such as arachnids.
Previous Research - Conservation Oriented Biodiversity Rapid Assessment (COBRA)
To face the current conservation challenges we need research project choices to be data informed, and their aims to be data driven, as this is the only way we can efficiently allocate limited resources to tackle the wider knowledge gaps, produce the standardized set of information needed to monitor biodiversity loss, and provide the tools Decision-Makers require to effectively protect it.
Biodiversity assessments have the potential to be that tool, but to this day they have not been globally coordinated nor broadly standardized, therefore results are often not comparable and many species groups, habitats and large regions of the globe remain understudied, and consequently underprotected.
I have worked extensively with a team of international researchers to establish a protocol that optimizes the sampling effort of field collecting (COBRA), establishing a standardized approach that can be practiced and implemented anywhere in the world, to estimated biodiversity values and allow comparable samples between areas, even if at different taxonomic resolutions.
Other Research Interests and activities
Reassessing taxonomy to inform conservation, mainly on species threaten with extinction by man made structures and activities (such as hydroelectric damns, stone quarries and golf courses) in isolated ecosystems, such as caves, oceanic islands, mediterranean climate valleys in Atlantic regions and semi-arid/arid habitats (mostly in the western mediterranean regions of the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb).
E-taxonomy tools to prioritise scientific issues, such as the most resource efficient sources for new taxa, and achieving the full potential of existing data from bibliographical and museological material.
Photography, illustration, citizen science and social media, as sources of biodiversity bigdata, while increasing research outreach.
Supervisors:
Dr. Robin Freeman (Indicators and Assessments Unit, ZSL)
Dr. Monika Böhm (Indicators and Assessments Unit, ZSL)
Dr. Pedro Cardoso (Finish Museum of Natural History)
Dr. Ben Collen (Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, UCL)
Selected Publications:
- Book Chapters
Henriques, S. (2013) Classe Aranídeos. Atlas da fauna do Parque Arquelógico do Vale Superior do Rio Terva - Fauna, Edited by Célia Gomes, 01/2013: pages 86-93/ 271-326; Câmara Municipal de Boticas., ISBN: 978-972-97695-4-2
Henriques, S. (2013) Classe Insectos. Atlas da fauna do Parque Arquelógico do Vale Superior do Rio Terva - Fauna, Edited by Célia Gomes, 01/2013: pages 86-93/ 271-326; Câmara Municipal de Boticas., ISBN: 978-972-97695-4-2
Henriques, S. (2013) Classe Quilópodes. Atlas da fauna do Parque Arquelógico do Vale Superior do Rio Terva - Fauna, Edited by Célia Gomes, 01/2013: pages 86-93/ 271-326; Câmara Municipal de Boticas., ISBN: 978-972-97695-4-2
- Journal Publications
Marabuto, E.; Rodrigues, I.; Henriques, S. (2014) Sphodromantis viridis (Forskal, 1775): New for Portugal and new records of the rare and small mantids Apteromantis aptera (Fuente, 1894) and Perlamantis allibertii Guérin-Méneville, 1843 in the country (Mantodea: Mantidae and Amorphoscelidae). Biodiversity Data Journal 01/2014; 2(2):e1037. DOI:10.3897/BDJ.2.e1037
Benhadi-Marín, J.; Barrientos, J.; Ferrández, M.; Henriques, S.; Morano, E. (2013) Second annotated list of selected spider families (Arachnida: Araneae) held at the University of Leon (Spain). Revista Ibérica de Aracnología 06/2013; 22:71–78.
Kral, J; Korinkova, T.; Krkavcova, L.; Musilova, J.; Forman, M.; Herrera, I.; Haddad, C.; Vitkova, M.; Henriques, S.; Vargas, J.; Hedin, M. (2013) Evolution of karyotype, sex chromosomes, and meiosis in mygalomorph spiders (Araneae: Mygalomorphae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 01/2013; 109(2). DOI:10.1111/bij.12056
Barata, M.; Perera, A.; Harris, J.; Meijden, A. van der; Carranza, S.; Ceacero, F.;García-Muñoz, E.; Gonçalves, D.; Henriques, S.; Jorge, F.; Marshal, J.; Pedrajas, L.; Sousa, P. (2011) New observations of amphibians and reptiles in Morocco, with a special emphasis on the Eastern Region. Herpetological Bulletin 116: 4-13
Carvalho, J.C.; Cardoso, P.; Crespo, L.C.; Henriques, S.; Carvalho, R.; Gomes, P. (2011) Biogeographic patterns of spiders in coastal dunes along a gradient of mediterraneity.Biodiversity and Conservation 20: 873-894
Peattie, A.; Dirks, J.; Henriques, S.; Federle, W. (2011): Arachnids Secrete a Fluid over Their Adhesive Pads. PLoS ONE 05/2011; 6(5):e20485. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0020485
Carvalho, J.C.; Cardoso, P.; Crespo, L.C.; Henriques, S.; Carvalho, R.; Gomes, P. (2011) Determinants of beta diversity of spiders in coastal dunes along a gradient of mediterraneity. Diversity and Distributions 17: 225–234
Carvalho, J.C.; Cardoso, P.; Crespo, L.C.; Henriques, S.; Carvalho, R.; Gomes, P. (2011) Determinants of spider species richness in coastal dunes along a gradient of mediterraneity. Insect Conservation and Diversity 5: 127-137
Cardoso, P.; Crespo, L.; Carvalho, R.; Rufino, A.; Henriques, S. (2009) Ad-Hoc vs.Standardized and Optimized Arthropod Diversity Sampling. Diversity 1: 36-51
Crespo, L.C.; Cardoso, P.; Henriques, S.; Gaspar, C. (2009) Spiders (Araneae) from Porto Santo (Madeira, Portugal): additions to the current knowledge. Boletín Sociedad Entomológica Aragonesa 45: 471-475
Crespo, L.C.; Cardoso, P.; Carvalho, R.; Henriques, S.; Rufino A. (2009) Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) from the Paúl de Arzila Natural Reserve (Portugal). Boletín de la Sociedad Entomológica Aragonesa 01/2009;
Cardoso, P.; Gaspar, C.; Pereira, L.C.; Silva, I.; Henriques, S.; Silva, R.; Sousa, P. (2008) Assessing spider species richness and composition in Mediterranean cork oak forests. Acta Oecologica 33: 114-127
Cardoso, P.; Scharff, N.; Gaspar, C.; Henriques, S.; Carvalho, R.; Castro, P.; Schmidt, J.; Silva, I.; Szuts, T.; Castro, A.; Crespo, L.C. (2008) Rapid biodiversity assessment of spiders (Araneae) using semiquantitative sampling: a case study in a Mediterranean forest. Insect Conservation and Diversity 1: 71-84
Cardoso, P.; Henriques, S.; Gaspar, C.; Crespo, L.; Carvalho, R.; Scmidt, J.; Sousa, P.; Szüts, T. (2007) Species richness and composition assessment of spiders in a Mediterranean scrubland. Journal of Insect Conservation 13: 45-55
