The FLOWer Lab is part of the Centre for Functional Ecology - Science for People & the Planet from the Department of Life Sciences of the University of Coimbra. Our research focuses on plant diversification and sympatric speciation, with particular emphasis on polyploidization processes and on plant–pollinator interactions as key drivers of contemporary patterns of plant diversity.

We integrate fundamental and applied research to understand the ecological and evolutionary processes shaping biodiversity. In applied contexts, we study pollination as a key ecosystem service supporting the sustainability and resilience of agroecosystems and multifunctional landscapes. We are strongly committed to biodiversity conservation, developing work on reproductive biology, plant ecology, and the in situ and ex situ conservation of threatened species, as well as on the valorisation of endogenous genetic resources.

We actively promote citizen science to advance knowledge of wild pollinators and their interactions, coordinating FITCount in Portugal and the BioDiversity4All project “PolinizAÇÃO – Interações Planta-Polinizador”. These initiatives contribute to long-term biodiversity monitoring and evidence-based conservation.

At the policy level, we coordinated the Portuguese National Plan for Pollinator Conservation, proposed the Portuguese Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (PT-PoMS), and co-authored the first Pollinator Guide of Portugal.