The Azores are a semitropical archipelago of volcanic islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, about 1,400 kms west of Lisbon and 1,500 kms northwest of Morocco.  The islands have some very impressive fauna and flora, but about 60% of the endemic species are vulnerable, or endangered according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List. Our guest, professor Paulo Borges, leads the development of the Azorean Biodiversity Portal, a node of Porbiota, or LifeWatch Portugal. The mission of the Biodiversity Portal is to collect, store, standardise, disseminate and make available computing resources to a wide range of stakeholders, so that science-based decisions can be made to improve the quality of conservation in island ecosystems.

The hope that professor Borges expresses in this interview is that the work at the AZORESBIOPORTAL can serve as an example to researchers in other archipelagos of how invertebrates can be used to restore habitats, in addition to birds and plants, and that they feel inspired to replicate the biodiversity portal with their own species, photos and data.