Helena Rio-Maior

MSc., now PhD. Student at Porto University, Portugal

Helena's main research interests are focused on carnivore behaviour and ecology with an emphasis on their conservation. Much of her experience has been focused on wolves, on which she has been working since 2002. Her past work was dedicated to population monitoring and dynamics in two Portuguese wolf sub-populations (North and South of Douro River). Moreover, she developed a predator-prey relationship study between wolves and free-ranging livestock. At present, she is concerned in understanding how landscape features and wolf social status affect elements of wolf behaviour thereby contributing to understand the mechanisms of large carnivore persistence in human dominated landscapes. She intends to evaluate the human modified landscape threshold at which a wolf population could persist. She is doing her PhD on ‘Behavioural and ecological determinants of large carnivore persistence in highly humanized landscapes: the case of wolves in northwest Iberia’. Helena can be reached at:

helenariomaior@gmail.com