CDF's aim is to identify and prioritize research needed to effectively manage and conserve Galapagos (See CDF's Strategic Plan). Multidisciplinary teams of scientists work together with partners to identify the research needs of Galapagos stakeholders and to address key conservation problems. CDF works especially closely with the Galapagos National Park.
By identifying what studies are most urgently needed to address the most significant problems facing the Galapagos ecosystem, CDF helps solve management problems and develop suitable approaches to conservation, restoration and sustainable development of Galapagos. Research encompasses areas such as invasive species, fisheries, climate change, tourism, and the environmental impacts of development.
These priorities are kept under constant review. Some examples of the research priorities for 2006-2007 are the following:
- Complete plant species inventories on Pinta, Santiago, Santa Cruz, San Cristobal, Floreana, and Marchena islands
- Complete inventories of lichens, mosses, liverworts and fungi (including pathogens)
- Complete inventory of native butterflies and moths and ants
- With community participation, complete inventory of introduced invertebrates in Santa Cruz
- Survey of spiny lobster and sea cucumber
- Vegetation on Santiago, Pinta, Santa Fe and Espanola islands
- Endangered species (vertebrates, plants, snails and moths)
- Sea lion health
- Land iguanas on Fernandina, Isabela, Santa Cruz and North Seymour islands
- Bird mortality on the Puerto Ayora - Baltra road, Santa Cruz island
- Bird mortality due to diseases and parasites
- Participatory monitoring plan for the Galapagos Marine Reserve
- Publish a Red Data Book (a publication of the IUCN´s Red List of Threatened Species) of at risk Galapagos plant species
- Evaluate invasiveness potential of introduced plants using a Weed Risk Assessment (WRA) system
- Evaluate invasiveness potential of introduced insects using an Invertebrate Risk Assessment (IRA) system
- Evaluate at risk invertebrate moths, butterflies and beetles
- Biology and natural history of the warty sea cucumber Stichopus horrens
- Health of sea turtle species
- Home range and migration movements of requiem and hammerhead sharks
- Metapopulation dynamics and recruitment of spiny lobster
- Population dynamics and recruitment of chitons
- Importance of mangroves as nursery grounds
- Biology of critically endangered plants and invertebrates
- Toxins used in the agricultural zones and how they affect bird health
- Management plan for invasive quinine
- Biological control of blackberry, quinine, and guava
- Biological control of fire ants, wasps, and botfly
- Restoration of the radiate-headed Scalesia, Scalesia affinis, Lecocarpus lecocarpoides, and other critically endangered plants
- Species recovery plans for Mangrove finch and other endangered bird species