The Master’s Thesis “Impact of insect diversity and abundance on the production of kiwi orchards”, developed under the i9Kiwi project, was presented on 17 July.

Authored by Hugo Gaspar, the work was developed in the FLOWer Lab of the Centre for Functional Ecology at the University of Coimbra and consisted in assessing the interaction between the abundance and diversity of the insect community and different agricultural management practices and landscape types in kiwifruit orchards, including information given by direct observations, net captures and captures with colored plates.
Additionally, through a citizen science initiative, using coloured plates, the abundance and diversity of insects for one year was assessed.

Our special thanks to all project partners, especially the Portuguese Kiwifruit Growers Association and all growers and technicians of the kiwifruit orchards for all their help during these studies.