Jesus Souza Troncoso

University of Vigo | UVIGO · Department of Ecology and Animal Biology

Mytilus galloprovincialis Lamarck, 1819, is a globally significant aquaculture species, contributing 25% of fresh seafood landings and leading EU mussel production. In Spain, it accounted for 255,218 tonnes in 2022, around 60% of the global harvest. This study introduces groundbreaking cryopreservation, being the first to successfully cryopreserve...

The European Marine Omics Biodiversity Observation Network (EMO BON) is an initiative of the European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC) to establish a persistent genomic observatory among designated European coastal marine sites, sharing the same protocols for sampling and data curation. Environmental samples are collected from the water co...

Symbiotic marine bacteria that are transmitted through the environment are susceptible to abiotic factors (salinity, temperature, physical barriers) that can influence their ability to colonize their specific hosts. Given that many symbioses are driven by host specificity, environmentally transmitted symbionts are more susceptible to extrinsic fact...

Molecular methods such as DNA/eDNA metabarcoding have emerged as useful tools to document biodiversity of complex communities over large spatio-temporal scales. We established an international Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (ARMS-MBON) combining standardised sampling using autonomous reef monitoring structures (ARMS) with metabarcoding for...

Evaluating the functional structure of benthic macrofaunal communities provides insights into how environmental drivers shape the ecosystem and establishes a baseline knowledge of the communities' dynamics and functioning. This understanding allows the prediction of responses to environmental changes and the implementation of efficient conservation...

Coastal ecosystems are vital for numerous demersal and benthopelagic species, offering critical habitats throughout their life cycles. Effective monitoring of these species in complex coastal environments is essential, yet traditional survey methodologies are often impractical due to environmental constraints like strong currents and high wave regi...

The ecology of macrofauna on the sandy bottom of oceanic islands in the tropics has rarely been studied. The present study was conducted at Isla del Coco, Costa Rica, a tropical oceanic island, to determine how the soft-bottom macrofauna assemblages vary along different levels of ocean exposure and their associated environmental conditions. The mac...

Extreme weather events (e.g., droughts, excessive precipitation) are expected to increase in frequency and severity in the coming decades due to climate change, causing significant impacts on society and ecosystems. Because these events are rare and complex, they have been studied with manipulative experiments. Littorinidae snails inhabit a complex...

This study examinates the challenges of cryopreserving sea urchin (Paracentrotus lividus) eggs, a task hindered by factors like low membrane permeability and high sensitivity to cryoprotective agents (CPAs). While successful cryopreservation has been achieved for some marine invertebrates, eggs remain problematic due to their unique characteristics...

Understanding species–habitat relationships is essential for ecosystem-based conservation. This study explores the significance of habitat characteristics and complexity for demersal and benthopelagic communities within a patchwork of coastal habitats, including rocky seabed, macroalgae formations, sandy bottoms, and a combination of rock and sand...

Reduced salinity in estuarine areas can negatively affect intertidal seagrass meadows where clams are harvested. However, legacy effects of hyposalinity on seagrasses and infaunal clams and on their interactions have seldom been studied. Legacy effects were examined in the intertidal seagrass Zostera noltei and juveniles of the clams Venerupis corr...

The maintenance of stocks of estuarine species strongly depends on the ability of the species to cope with environmental stress. In NW Spain, commercial clam beds, which are usually co-occupied by the seagrass Zostera noltei , are often exposed to reduced salinity caused by intense rainfalls. Our goals were to evaluate the effects of low salinity e...

Comprehending the mechanisms and circumstances responsible for the dynamics of biological communities is a fundamental step for predicting responses to environmental changes as well as efficient conservation and management efforts. Macrofaunal assemblages support a wide range of ecosystem services, serving as integral components of the biogeochemic...

Ecosystem engineers are organisms that cause changes in the physical state of biotic and abiotic structures that modulate the availability of resources to other species, thus affecting biochemical cycles. Molluscs, especially bivalves such as mussels, are widespread in coastal environments and they are excellent ecosystem engineers because of the d...

To understand global shifting trends in marine biodiversity it is essential to apply cost-efficient biomonitoring approaches in a coordinated and standardized manner, to generate comparable data across geographical regions and countries. In this context, DNA metabarcoding is particularly useful to document biodiversity over larger spatiotemporal sc...

El archipiélago Diego Ramírez se encuentra en el Mar de Hoces (Paso de Drake), al suroeste del Cabo de Hornos. Es considerado el punto más austral de la Provincia Magallánica y se caracteriza por su influencia oceánica y exposición al oleaje. Recientemente se estableció el Parque Marino Diego Ramírez-Paso de Drake para proteger la biodiversidad y l...

The decline of natural populations of the common cockle (Cerastoderma edule) through the European coast is posing a threat to local small-scale fisheries. These declines are primarily attributed to the prevalence of several pathogens and the disseminated neoplasia in cockle populations. The institution of a biobank of cryopreserved larvae could enh...

Se presenta un conjunto de registros de moluscos intermareales (hasta aproximadamente 1 m de profundidad), colectados en campañas primaverales en Isla Gonzalo (Archipiélago Diego Ramírez). El juego de datos corresponde a 53 morfoespecies de las clases Polyplacophora, Gastropoda y Bivalvia.

We used DNA metabarcoding to compare macrozoobenthic species colonization between autonomous reef monitoring structures (ARMS) and artificial seaweed monitoring systems (ASMS). We deployed both substrates in two different locations (Ría de Vigo and Ría de Ferrol, NW Iberian coast) and collected them after 6, 9, and 12 months to assess species compo...

The increased frequency of heatwaves expected in the context of global warming will affect socio-ecological systems such as shellfish beds at intertidal seagrass meadows. A mesocosm experiment was performed to assess the effects of a simulated atmospheric heatwave during low tide on the bioturbation indicators and growth of the commercial juvenile...

The longevity of kleptoplasts and sea slugs during starvation may be mediated by multiple factors, including the recognition of the plastids during feeding by multiple receptors (e.g. PRRs, CTLRs and SRs) and ROS-quenching proteins using enzymatic and nonenzymatic mechanisms. In particular, in the transcriptome of E. viridis we found that the prese...

Probl Cryobiol Cryomed 2022; 32(4):299

Environmental and nature conservation authorities are calling for a collective effort to break or reduce the current cycle of environmental degradation. Much of the response depends on scientific knowledge production based on thematically and geographically comprehensive datasets. Citizen science (CS) is a cost-effective support tool for scientific...

Shellfish aquaculture needs the development of new tools for the improvement of good practices avoiding the reliance on natural spat collection to increase production efficiently. The aim of this work was to improve the cryopreservation protocol for Mytilus galloprovincialis larvae described in Paredes et al. (in: Wolkers, Oldenhof (eds) Cryopreser...

Bivalves and seagrasses can interact through diverse environmentally-modulated mechanisms. To assess the effects of climate warming on bivalve-seagrass interactions, we carried out a pioneering field experiment in which open top chambers (OTCs) were used to increase air and sediment temperature in a shellfish bed in NW Spain during two consecutive...

Biodiversity loss is considered one of the main threats to marine ecosystems. In this framework of biodiversity decline, organisms that provide biogenic habitat play a relevant role by their capacity to structure assemblages and influence ecological processes. The Mediterranean mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis is considered an ecosystem engineer be...

Climate change has been considered as the most serious threat to biodiversity, and therefore, it has been receiving increasing attention regarding its potential impacts on the coastal zone. According to IPCC forecasts, increase in CO2, sea and air temperature, sea level rise, and ocean acidification are expected. Thus, this study evaluated the syne...

Probl Cryobiol Cryomed 2022; 32(1): 068–071

Seagrass carbon stocks are vulnerable to physical disturbance. We assessed the effect of clam harvesting on the organic carbon (Corg) stocks in surface sediments in four intertidal Zostera noltei meadows on the Iberian Atlantic coast (Spain and Portugal), by comparing undisturbed and harvested areas. We also monitored the spatial cover of the meado...

DNA metabarcoding has great potential to improve marine biomonitoring programs by providing a rapid and accurate assessment of species composition in zoobenthic communities. However, some methodological improvements are still required, especially regarding failed detections, primers efficiency and incompleteness of databases. Here we assessed the e...

Marine aquaculture releases mollusc shell debris which can accumulate on the seabed. Due to its low degradability, mollusc shell debris becomes integrated into the sediment, modifying both its structure and associated biogeochemical processes. These changes are expected to influence the biological assemblages within the sediment, which play a key r...

Poster for the 24th BIENAL Congress organized by the Royal Spanish Society of Natural History. In this study, we describe the diversity and distribution of cumaceans in the soft substrates of the infralittoral zone in Baiona Bay (Galicia), as well as their relationship with the sediment type.

Cryopreservation is the only reliable method for long-term storage of biological material that guarantees genetic stability. This technique can be extremely useful for the conservation of endangered species and restock natural populations for declining species. Many factors have negatively affected the populations of high economical value shellfish...

Sampling impediments and paucity of suitable material for molecular analyses have precluded the study of speciation and radiation of deep-sea species in Antarctica. We analyzed barcodes together with genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms obtained from double digestion restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (ddRADseq) for species in the fa...

Invasive macroalgae represent one of the major threats to marine biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and structure, as well as being important drivers of ecosystem services depletion. Many such species have become well established along the west coast of the Iberian Peninsula. However, the lack of information about the distribution of the invaders...

Introduction: The exploitation of the sea cucumber (Holothuria (Panningothuria) forskali) in Ría de Vigo (NW Spain) is recent (2015) and it has been done until now with scarce or no information about some key biological aspects as reproduction, recruitment or growth. Objective: To describe the reproductive cycle of H. forskali in Ría de Vigo. Met...

The abundance and distribution of intertidal canopy-forming macroalgae are threatened by the increase in sea surface temperature and in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves caused by global warming. This study evaluated the physiological response of predominant intertidal macroalgae in the NW Iberian Peninsula (Bifurcaria bifurcata, Cystoseira...

Marine hard-bottom communities are undergoing severe change under the influence of multiple drivers, notably climate change, extraction of natural resources, pollution and eutrophication, habitat degradation, and invasive species. Monitoring marine biodiversity in such habitats is, however, challenging as it typically involves expensive, non-standa...

Marine hard-bottom communities are undergoing severe change under the influenceof multiple drivers, notably climate change, extraction ofnatural resources, pollutionand eutrophication, habitat degradation, and invasive species. Monitoring marinebiodiversity in such habitats is, however, challenging as it typically involves expensive,non-standardize...

Marine hard-bottom communities are undergoing severe change under the influence of multiple drivers, notably climate change, extraction of natural resources, pollution and eutrophication, habitat degradation, and invasive species. Monitoring marine biodiversity in such habitats is, however, challenging as it typically involves expensive, non-standa...

Cryopreservation of gametes, embryos and larvae of marine invertebrates has been investigated in many studies throughout the years. There are many favorable studies on sperm cryopreservation but oocytes are still under research as no successful results have been sustainably obtained for this type of cells. The preservation of both maternal and pate...

Probl Cryobiol Cryomed 2020; 30(3): 297–297

Selected 72 hold D larva and 10% Ethylene-Glycol + 0.4 M Trehalose in Sea Water. Cryopreservation protocol: equilibration of 60 min. Samples loaded into 0.25 mL straws. Using a programmable freezer: 2 min at 4°C,-1°C/min to-12°C, 2 min at-12°C (seeding),-1°C/min to-35°C, plunging into LN, thawing by immersion into a water bath at 35°C. Larval reari...

A tool-box of methodologies available via the web for the cryopreservation of marine invertebrate embryos, larvae and/or gametes, teleost germ cells, macroalgae, protists and microbial consortia.

DNA metabarcoding provides a rapid and effective identification tool of macroinvertebrate species. The accuracy of species-level assignment, and consequent taxonomic coverage, relies on comprehensive DNA barcode reference libraries, which, due to incompleteness, are currently a recognized limitation for metabarcoding applications. In this study, we...

Sampling impediments and paucity of suitable material for molecular analyses have precluded the study of speciation and radiation of deep-sea species in Antarctic ecosystems. This knowledge may serve to establish the framework for evaluating future anthropogenic alterations, particularly in a highly susceptible region like Antarctica. Here, we anal...

Microbial biofilms can be key mediators for settlement of macrofoulers. The present study examines the coupled effects of microbial biofilms and local environmental conditions on the composition, structure and functioning of macrofouling assemblages. Settlement of invertebrates over a gradient of human-impacted sites was investigated on local biofi...

Mytilus galloprovincialis is one of the most farmed marine species worldwide. Several factors limit the global production, including the supply of natural seed. Cryopreservation can provide a stable resource of early larval stages avoiding seasonal limitations and enhancing selective breeding for inland seed production. The aim of this work was to...

Due to the economic importance of the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis in the Spanish aquaculture, there is a growing interest in developing alternative methods to ensure the supply of good-quality biological material and to minimize the uncertainty and variability that might be a source of economic risk for this sector. The aim of this work was to...