MSc·Ongoing·2025–2026
Nicola Boni
Global Change Ecology and Sustainability
Multitemporal remote sensing of vegetation dynamics through seasonal spectral composites and NDVI
Explore the thesis ↗People / 07
People make the lab.
Biodiversity Lab is a research group based in the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Trieste. We bring together expertise in plant ecology, biodiversity science, remote sensing, environmental assessment and spatial analysis within a collaborative and internationally connected research environment.
What defines the lab is a shared commitment to rigorous research, interdisciplinary thinking and collaborative work across scales — from field observations and experimental ecology to spatial modelling, Earth observation and environmental decision support. The group is united by a common interest in understanding biodiversity change and in developing robust scientific evidence to support conservation and ecosystem management.
Biodiversity Lab is also a place of advanced academic training. PhD candidates, visiting researchers, Bachelor’s and Master’s students grow within an environment shaped by international collaborations, field experience and the continuous exchange of cutting-edge ideas, methods and perspectives. This combination of research intensity and mentorship is a central part of the lab’s identity.
Current team
Researchers & PhD candidates
The core team combines complementary expertise in plant ecology, biodiversity assessment, environmental monitoring, spatial analysis and remote sensing. Individual profiles collect research interests, current activities, projects and professional links.
Associate Professor · Principal Investigator
Giovanni Bacaro
Associate Professor of Environmental and Applied Botany at the University of Trieste. His research develops quantitative, spatially explicit and multi-scale approaches to understand biodiversity change and translate ecological evidence into conservation, monitoring and environmental decision-making.
Plant community ecologyBiodiversityRemote sensing
Research Fellow
Anna Lilian Gardossi
Research Fellow working at the intersection of remote sensing, GIS and agroecosystem analysis, with a current focus on soil-erosion risk and environmental monitoring across agricultural and forest systems in Friuli Venezia Giulia.
Remote sensingSoil erosionAgroecosystems
Researcher
Emilia Pafumi
Remote-sensing ecologist developing multi-scale approaches for habitat mapping, vegetation monitoring and biodiversity conservation, from field ground-truth data to satellite imagery, UAV products and deep-learning workflows.
Remote sensingHabitat mappingCoastal dunes
Research Fellow
Federica Fonda
Conservation ecologist working on ecological connectivity, wildlife and biodiversity impact assessment, with current research spanning freshwater systems, infrastructure impacts and transboundary conservation.
Ecological connectivityConservation ecologyWildlife ecology
PhD Candidate
Marina Brogi
PhD candidate in Environmental Life Sciences studying how botanical gardens conserve global plant functional diversity and how living collections can serve as open laboratories for sampling hard-to-measure plant traits.
Functional diversityPlant functional traitsBotanical gardens
Incoming PhD Candidate
Gaia Foltran
Geospatial ecologist and incoming PhD candidate (November 2026) in Biodiversity, Evolution and Adaptation at UniTS. Selected for the ELC Electroconsult co-funded Next-Generation EIA scholarship, linking ecological pressures, responses and biodiversity offsets through GIS, Earth observation and ecological modelling.
Remote sensingLandscape ecologyLand-cover change
Research Fellow
Musa Yusuph Mungah
Tanzania-based research fellow working on climate-resilient coffee systems, ecological suitability modelling and functional-trait analysis. Within Sustainable Coffee Tanzania, he integrates GIS, remote sensing and species-distribution modelling with varietal trait information to identify coffee-growing areas and varieties that may be better suited to future climatic conditions.
Coffee agroecologySpecies distribution modellingClimate suitability
Visiting researchers
Researchers joining the lab for focused periods.
Visiting researchers contribute to joint analyses, field activities, methods development and international collaborations. The section includes both current and previous research stays hosted by Biodiversity Lab.
Bachelor & Master students
Student research connected to ongoing projects.
Our Bachelor’s and Master’s students develop their theses within active research, working with field observations, ecological data and geospatial methods. Current projects appear here; completed theses remain accessible in the dedicated archive.
MSc·Ongoing·2025–2026
Anna Colussi
Global Change Ecology and Sustainability
Spectral characterisation and remote sensing of wetland habitats in the Lesotho Highlands
Explore the thesis ↗Alumni
Former group members
Research groups are also shaped by the people who move through them. This section records former members and the research trajectories that originated in or passed through Biodiversity Lab.
