Iraima Verkaik Witteveen

Degree in Biology by the Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas. Master's degree in Environmental Sciences and PhD in Fundamental and Applied Ecology (2010) from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She has participated in more than fifteen research projects (some of them at CREAF), which have in common basic research at local and regional scales to provide information on dynamic systems and to be able to act in the face of global change. She has also taken part in practical workshops as a way of connecting scientific research with society.

She is currently a CREAF research technician on the European project SPRING (Strengthening Pollinator Recovery through INdicators and monitorinG), the main objective of which is to test the methodology for future pollinator monitoring (EUPoMS). The initiative also aims to improve the knowledge on pollinator insects in the European Community Member States, as well as the expansion and consolidation of their monitoring networks.

Three groups of pollinating insects will be sampled regularly at more than 200 SPRING stations: bees, hoverflies and diurnal butterflies. The Atlantic-Mediterranean region accounts for almost a quarter of these stations. Together with CREAF researchers Jordi Bosch and Anselm Rodrigo (from the Insect Ecology and Pollination Ecology group) and Constantí Stefanescu (from the Museum of Natural Sciences of Granollers) he is involved in the coordination of this region.