PRESENTATION

The Graduate Program in Genetics, Biodiversity, and Conservation (PPGGBC) began its activities in 2010 with a CAPES rating of 3, with the goal of reducing regional disparities in the training of qualified professionals to advance scientific knowledge and assess the impacts on natural resources and biodiversity, with an emphasis on northeastern Brazil. In the evaluation for the 2021–2024 four-year period, the program was upgraded to a CAPES rating of 4.

Since 2014, the PPGGBC has been part of CAPES’ Biodiversity Chamber and has been working to develop professionals in the biological sciences and related fields, preparing them to become faculty members and independent researchers of high scientific caliber who are competent, creative, and innovative, in line with Brazil’s programs for the expansion and regionalization of stricto sensu graduate education.

Due to the breadth of approaches related to biodiversity studies, the PPGGBC offers diverse research lines ranging from projects traditionally linked to taxonomy, zoology, ecology, and natural history to those involving genetic analysis and environmental chemistry, providing students with an integrated view of these subfields of knowledge. Similarly, the curriculum is diverse and multidisciplinary, addressing the need to fill the knowledge gap regarding Brazilian biodiversity and the challenges facing its conservation.

GOALS

Our mission is to qualify human resources in the distinct scopes of Biodiversity by improving the skills of professional from Biological Sciences and related areas, with emphasis in semiarid and transition zones in northeastern Brazil. Therefore, the general goal of PPGGBC meets the growing need for high-level, competent, creative and innovative teachers and researchers in the countryside and remote places along northeastern Brazil capable of acting in the three structuring focuses of Biodiversity:

1) Characterization of biodiversity (taxonomy, morphology, biology and genetic/ biochemical profile of organisms);

2) Organization and evolution of biodiversity (systematics, community ecology, landscape ecology, interaction network, biogeography, phylogeography, phylogenetics, genetic structure, and ecological interactions);

3) Utilization and importance of biodiversity (conservation biology, environmental sciences, ecotoxicology, bioprospection and improvement of local genetic resources)

For that, the specific goals of PPGGBC are lined up with two research fields (Biodiversity and Conservation and Genetics).

Graduates from PPGGBC are expected to be able to recognize and formulate significant questions for research in genetics, biodiversity and conservation and develop critical thinking and technical skills to answer such questions. In particular, graduates are prepared to meet the demands and particularities of historically neglected environments such as caatinga and transition areas in northeastern Brazil using diversified tools to analyze the distinct hierarchical levels of biodiversity, based on the diversity of disciplines, differentiated expertise of advisors and exchange of experiences among faculty members, students and society. Graduates should also be qualified for teaching in high school and higher education contributing to the training of human resources, researches and extension projects in order to minimize knowledge gaps and threats to biodiversity conservation in an integrative manner fostered by the diversified approaches experienced during the master’s course. Thus, the PPGGBC aims the improvement of human knowledge, with direct or indirect applications to national development and to better living conditions of the society, particularly within the areas of activity associated to UESB.

Corroborating the skills of the graduates by PPGGBC, about 60% of our masters carried on their academic education by being approved in PhD courses from top-ranked institutions. In other cases, the masters from PPGGBC were employed as high-school teachers or higher-education professors from public and private institutions, or compose the technical staff of environmental agencies and private companies.