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O biólogo está a estudar a botânica do país, a qual é fascinante.

O biólogo está a estudar a botânica do país, a qual é fascinante.
The biologist is studying the botany of the country, which is fascinating.
From Lesson 431:Clarifying relative clauses (o qual, a qual)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about O biólogo está a estudar a botânica do país, a qual é fascinante.

Why did the speaker choose a qual here instead of the simpler que?
If we used que, the sentence could grammatically mean that either a botânica (the botany) or o país (the country) is fascinating. While common sense tells us botany is the fascinating subject here, using a qual completely resolves the grammatical ambiguity. Because a qual is feminine and singular, it directly points back to the feminine a botânica, safely bypassing the masculine o país.
Would it be wrong to just use que in this sentence?
Not at all. Saying ... do país, que é fascinante is grammatically correct and actually much more common in everyday spoken Portuguese. The form a qual is slightly more formal and is heavily used in writing or careful speech specifically to prevent the kind of ambiguity mentioned above.
Is the comma before a qual strictly necessary?
Yes. The comma makes this an explanatory relative clause, meaning it just adds extra, non-essential information (like saying 'which, by the way, is fascinating'). Without a comma, it would become a restrictive clause, bizarrely implying that the country has multiple 'botanies' and the biologist is only studying the fascinating one. Furthermore, words like o qual and a qual are heavily preferred for explanatory clauses with commas, rather than restrictive ones.
As a quick refresher on European Portuguese, why is it está a estudar rather than está estudando?
In standard European Portuguese, the present continuous is formed using estar a followed by the infinitive of the verb, hence está a estudar. The gerund form está estudando is the standard in Brazilian Portuguese. While a few regional dialects in Portugal do use the gerund, at a B2 level you should always default to the estar a construction to sound natural in Portugal.

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