Catarina Jesus Pinho

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Catarina Jesus verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD in Biodiversity Genetics and Evolution
• Researcher at Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources

Knowledge on diet composition of a species is an important step to unveil its ecology and guide conservation actions. This is especially important for species that inhabit remote areas within biodiversity hotspots, with little information about their ecological roles. The emblematic giant wall gecko of Cabo Verde, Tarentola gigas, is restricted to...

DNA metabarcoding is widely used to characterize the diet of species, and it becomes very relevant for biodiversity conservation, allowing the understanding of trophic chains and the impact of invasive species. The need for cost‐effective biodiversity monitoring methods fostered advances in this technique. One question that arises is which sample t...

Pseudoscorpions are known worldwide and yet are poorly studied mainly due to the difficulty of detecting them. Among their predators are ground-dwelling taxa, such as arthropods, amphibians, birds, and reptiles. Only four pseudoscorpion species are known to occur in the Cabo Verde Archipelago, and none in the Desertas Islands, located in the northw...

Dietary studies can reveal valuable information on how species exploit their habitats and are of particular importance for insular endemics conservation as these species present higher risk of extinction. Reptiles are often neglected in island systems, principally the ones inhabiting remote areas, therefore little is known on their ecological netwo...

Trophic networks in small isolated islands are in a fragile balance, and their disturbance can easily contribute toward the extinction vortex of species. Here, we show, in a small Atlantic island (Raso) in the Cabo Verde Archipelago, using DNA metabarcoding, the extent of trophic dependence of the Endangered giant wall gecko Tarentola gigas on ende...

Background Metabarcoding is invaluable for understanding trophic interactions, enabling high-resolution and rapid dietary assessments. However, it requires a robust DNA barcode reference library for accurate taxa identification. This dataset has been generated in the framework of the InBIO Barcoding Initiative (IBI) and Agrivole project. The integr...

Oceanic islands are exciting models for studying how evolutionary processes and environmental variables can jointly contribute to speciation and community assembly over time. In this context, the Cabo Verde archipelago serves as a simplified natural laboratory, harbouring a group of endemic reptile species that are descended from a single common an...

Competitive dietary and morphological divergence among co-occurring species are fundamental aspects of ecological communities, particularly on islands. Cabo Verde (~570 km west of continental Africa) hosts several endemic reptiles descended from common ancestors, with sympatric species exhibiting wide morphological variation and competing for limit...

Background The InBIO Barcoding Initiative (IBI) Dataset - DS-IBILP08 contains records of 2350 specimens of moths (Lepidoptera species that do not belong to the superfamily Papilionoidea). All specimens have been morphologically identified to species or subspecies level and represent 1158 species in total. The species of this dataset correspond to a...

Agriculture is vital for supporting human populations, but its intensification often leads to landscape homogenization and a decline in non‐provisioning ecosystem services. Ecological intensification and multifunctional landscapes are suggested as nature‐based alternatives to intensive agriculture, using ecological processes like natural pest regul...

DNA metabarcoding is widely used for diet characterization and is becoming increasingly important for biodiversity conservation, allowing the understanding of trophic networks and community assemblies. However, to our knowledge, few studies have used this approach to investigate trophic interactions for whole communities and none for reptiles. In p...

Invasive species disrupt relations between endemics and their ecosystem and are an increasing biodiversity conservation problem. The Hemidactylus genus comprises the most successful invasive reptile species, including the worldwide-distributed Hemidactylus mabouia. In this study, we used 12S and ND2 sequences to taxonomically identify and tentative...

Background The Trichoptera are an important component of freshwater ecosystems. In the Iberian Peninsula, 380 taxa of caddisflies are known, with nearly 1/3 of the total species being endemic in the region. A reference collection of morphologically identified Trichoptera specimens, representing 142 Iberian taxa, was constructed. The InBIO Barcoding...

Studying collection specimens is often the only way to unravel information about recent extinctions. These can reveal knowledge on threats and life traits related to extinction, and contribute, by extrapolation, to the conservation of extant species. However, high-throughput sequencing methods have rarely been applied to extinct species to reveal i...

The Madeiran wall lizard Teira dugesii is a relatively new species to the Azores Archipelago, where it was accidentally introduced about 150 to 200 years ago. This lacertid quickly became naturalised and now occurs in all the nine main islands of the Azores. At Praia Islet, off Graciosa Island, the Madeiran wall lizard was recently observed preying...