Cristiana Castello Branco

• PhD
• PostDoc Position at Smithsonian Institution

Increasing habitat modification and species loss demand consistent efforts to describe and understand biodiversity patterns. The BIOTA/FAPESP Program was created in this context and it has been a successful initiative to promote studies on biodiversity and conservation in Brazil. The BIOTA/Araçá is an interdisciplinary project that provided a detai...

The outer shelf and upper slope region under the influence of the Amazon River mouth harbors an extensive reef system with a rich sponge fauna, but no hexactinellids were recorded in the area so far. In this work, manned submersibles were used to describe for the first time three species of Hexactinellida off the Amazon River mouth: Hyalonema (Cyli...

Seven new arylpyrrole alkaloids (1-7), along with four known compounds, were isolated from an extract of a Dactylia sp. nov. marine sponge, and their structures were elucidated by interpretation of NMR and MS spectroscopic data. Denigrins D-G (1-4) have highly substituted pyrrole or pyrrolone rings in their core structures, while dactylpyrroles A-C...

The workshop aimed to identify coherent, collaborative, and scientifically robust solutions to addressing taxonomic knowledge gaps in various stages from collection, preservation and archiving of biological samples and taxonomic data to identification and description of species. Specifically, the workshop focused on: (i) identifying specific needs...

This article describes or redescribes four hexactinellid sponges, namely Poliopogon amadou, Euplectella sanctipauli sp. nov., Bolosoma perezi sp. nov. and Advhena magnifica gen. et sp. nov. P. amadou, E. sanctipauli sp. nov. and B. perezi sp. nov. represent new findings for the South Atlantic deep-sea fauna, including the first record of Bolosoma f...

Hamacantha occurs worldwide and frequently in deep-waters. It is easily distinguished from any other sponge by the possession of conspicuous diancistra microscleres. Here we describe two new species from the Rio Grande Rise. Hamacantha (Vomerula) jeanvaceleti sp. nov. is the sole Hamacantha with styles, diancistras in two categories with the smalle...

Long overlooked, sponge grounds are now known to create habitats and support high biodiversity, with its associated benefits. Some of these variously dense deep-sea sponge aggregations are formed by hexactinellids, which can occur on both soft and hard substrates. Notwithstanding their ecological importance as occasional habitat framework building...

The genus Metania comprises 11 species of freshwater sponge that are distributed circumtropically: five are Neotropical, three Afrotropical, two Oriental and one Australian. Here we infer the phylogeny of the genus Metania and examine the processes that lead to the current biogeographic distribution using cladistic analysis. One matrix with 26 morp...

Until now only two species of Cladorhiza have been reported from the SW Atlantic, namely C. diminuta and C. inversa, despite a total of 39 species reported from various parts of the globe. Here we describe a new species, C. nicoleae sp. nov., dredged from 750 m depth on the continental slope off SE Brazil during the French RV ‘Marion Dufresne’ expe...

There are 22 species of Hamacantha registered from all over the world, and frequently from deep-waters, only two of which had previously been reported from the SW Atlantic. Here we describe a third species for this area, Hamacantha (H.) boomerang sp. nov., collected from deep-sea coral mounds at Campos Basin (off Rio de Janeiro state). We found oxe...

Two new records of sponges are registered from Ilha Grande Bay (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), which is an important area in Angra dos Reis for its tourist, economic and environmental contributions. Two species are redescribed in order to elucidate their morphological variations in relation to the known Caribbean specimens: Iotrochota arenosa, a new reco...

The genus Metania consists of freshwater sponges with a bulbous to massive body shape. Gemmules are present (asexual resistant body), with theca usually tri-layered and gemmoscleres that are pseudobirotules. Metania has eleven species with a circumtropical distribution: five showing a Neotropical distribution, three with an Afrotropical distributio...