Joana Ruela Heimbürger Boavida

Joana Ruela Heimbürger Boavida
Aix-Marseille University | AMU · Directorate for Research and Development

PhD

About

42
Publications
16,739
Reads
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544
Citations
Additional affiliations
May 2021 - May 2022
Aix-Marseille University
Position
  • Project Manager
February 2019 - present
Aix-Marseille University
Position
  • Population genetics practicals
Description
  • Population genetics exercises using R, from microsatellites and gene sequences to high throughput sequencing applications, to the Marine Biology Master students.
February 2019 - January 2020
French National Centre for Scientific Research
Position
  • PostDoc Position
Education
July 2011 - July 2015
Universidade do Algarve and Ifremer France
Field of study
  • Marine Ecology and Conservation
January 2006 - December 2007
University of Algarve
Field of study
  • Marine Biology (specialty in Marine Ecology and Conservation)
October 2002 - December 2005
Universidade do Algarve, Portugal and Universidade do Vale do Itajaí (Univali), Brasil
Field of study
  • Marine Biology and Fisheries

Publications

Publications (42)
Article
Full-text available
Background: The highly valuable red coral Corallium rubrum is listed in several Mediterranean Conventions for species protection and management since the 1980s. Yet, the lack of data about its Atlantic distribution has hindered its protection there. This culminated in the recent discovery of poaching activities harvesting tens of kg of coral per d...
Article
Full-text available
Mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs; ~30–150 m depth) are among the most biologically diverse and least protected ecosystems in the world's oceans. However, discussions regarding the conservation of these unique ecosystems are scarce. To address this issue, we identified the features of MCEs that demonstrate they should be considered as a global cons...
Article
Full-text available
Bottom-contact fisheries are unquestionably one of the main threats to the ecological integrity and functioning of deep-sea and circalittoral ecosystems, notably cold-water corals (CWC) and coral gardens. Lessons from the destructive impact of bottom trawling highlight the urgent need to understand how fisheries affect these vulnerable marine ecosy...
Article
Savalia savaglia is an Atlantic-Mediterranean zoantharian species with a patchy geographic and bathymetric distribution. Due to its longevity, S. savaglia may form large-sized colonies which play a crucial role in the ecosystem as habitat formers. Despite its ecological importance, little is known about the population structure and intraspecific ge...
Article
Full-text available
The Gray’s sea fan, Paramuricea grayi (Johnson, 1861), typically inhabits deep littoral and circalittoral habitats of the eastern temperate and tropical Atlantic Ocean. Along the Iberian Peninsula, where P. grayi is a dominant constituent of circalittoral coral gardens, two segregating lineages (yellow and purple morphotypes) were recently identifi...
Article
Full-text available
The accurate delimitation of species boundaries in nonbilaterian marine taxa is notoriously difficult, with consequences for many studies in ecology and evolution. Anthozoans are a diverse group of key structural organisms worldwide, but the lack of reliable morphological characters and informative genetic markers hampers our ability to understand...
Article
Full-text available
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. Abstract The deep-sea corals Dendrophyllia ramea and Dendrophyllia...
Article
Full-text available
Understanding the factors and processes that shape intra-specific sensitivity to heat stress is fundamental to better predicting the vulnerability of benthic species to climate change. Here, we investigate the response of a habitat-forming Mediterranean octocoral, the red gorgonian Paramuricea clavata (Risso, 1826) to thermal stress at multiple bio...
Preprint
The accurate delimitation of species boundaries in non-bilaterian marine taxa is notoriously difficult, with consequences for many studies in ecology and evolution. Anthozoans are a diverse group of key structural organisms worldwide, but the lack of reliable morphological characters and informative genetic markers hampers our ability to understand...
Data
Supplementary information - Summary of sampling locations - Core collection and dating - DNA amplification and sequencing - Species delimitation - Genetic diversity and phylogeographic patterns - Bayesian Skyline Plots - Inference of the number of clusters in the DAPC - Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) - Specific model parameters and model ch...
Data
Contents Dataset S1. Records of occurrence used to model the ecological niche of Paramuricea clavata. Table S1. Environment predictors used in ecological niche modelling. Figure S1. Spatial autocorrelation of environmental predictors within occurrence records. Figure S2. Spatial distribution of the records of occurrence used to model the ecological...
Article
Humans are exposed to methylmercury (MeHg), a bioaccumulative neurotoxin, mainly through the consumption of marine fish. Several studies showed that high MeHg exposure can lead to neurological damage. This is particularly relevant for pregnant women, because MeHg exposure negatively impacts foetal development. Populations living near the sea are ge...
Chapter
Given the vastness of the oceans and the small size of larvae and other marine propagules, tracking marine organisms’ dispersal particles is unrealistic. When propagules successfully recruit, a genetic profile can be tracked that integrates the movements of multiple generations. Molecular analyses thus provide an indirect means of estimating connec...
Article
Lead (Pb) concentrations in long-lived Corallium species of known age, from the Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, were determined by laser ablation, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS). Lead concentrations in a 2000-year-old sub-fossil Mediterranean C. rubrum are ca 0.09 ± 0.03 μg/g. For the period 1894–1955, lead...
Article
Full-text available
Background: In the ocean, the variability of environmental conditions found along depth gradients exposes populations to contrasting levels of perturbation, which can be reflected in the overall patterns of species genetic diversity. At shallow sites, resource availability may structure large, persistent and well-connected populations with higher...
Article
Aim To infer cold‐water corals’ (CWC) post‐glacial phylogeography and assess the role of Mediterranean Sea glacial refugia as origins for the recolonization of the northeastern Atlantic Ocean. Location Northeastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Taxon Lophelia pertusa, Madrepora oculata. Methods We sampled CWC using remotely operated vehi...
Article
Full-text available
Some of the major challenges in seagrass restoration on exposed open coasts are the choice of transplant design that is optimal for coastlines periodically exposed to high water motion, and understanding the survival and dynamics of the transplanted areas on a long time-scale over many years. To contribute to a better understanding of these challen...
Preprint
Full-text available
The temperate coralligenous bioconcretions are mainly built by the accumulation of encrusting coralline algae growing at low irradiance levels. They harbour approximately 10% of marine Mediterranean species (about 1600 species), including long-lived algae and invertebrates. Enhanced by climate change, several pressures affect coralligenous assembla...
Preprint
Full-text available
The temperate coralligenous bioconcretions are mainly built by the accumulation of encrusting coralline algae growing at low irradiance levels. They harbour approximately 10% of marine Mediterranean species (about 1600 species), including long-lived algae and invertebrates. Enhanced by climate change, several pressures affect coralligenous assembla...
Article
Patterns of genetic variation within a species may be used to infer past events in the evolutionary history of marine species. In the present study we aimed to compare the genetic diversity of the red gorgonian Paramuricea clavata in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. For genetic markers we used microsatellites and a mitochondrial gene f...
Technical Report
The MEDWAVES (MEDiterranean out flow WAter and Vulnerable EcosystemS) cruise targeted areas under the potential influence of the MOW within the Mediterranean and Atlantic realms. These include seamounts where Cold-water corals (CWCs) have been reported but that are still poorly known, and which may act as essential “stepping stones” connecting faun...
Article
Full-text available
Clonal propagation is a common feature of benthic marine organisms. In the present study, we investigated the contribution of clonal reproduction in the red gorgonian Paramuricea clavata. Mediterranean populations of P. clavata were severely affected by mass mortality events caused by increased water temperature in 1999 and 2003. The populations ar...
Article
Full-text available
Factors shaping the distribution of mesophotic octocorals (30–200 m depth) remain poorly understood, potentially leaving overlooked coral areas, particularly near their bathymetric and geographic distributional limits. Yet, detailed knowledge about habitat requirements is crucial for conservation of sensitive gorgonians. Here we use Ecological Nich...
Article
Full-text available
Estimating the patterns of connectivity in marine taxa with planktonic dispersive stages is a challenging but crucial task because of its conservation implications. The red gorgonian Paramuricea clavata is a habitat forming species, characterized by short larval dispersal and high reproductive output, but low recruitment. In the recent past, the sp...
Data
Microsatellite data set. The allele sizes in 10 loci studied in 6 P. clavata populations in the Ligurian Sea. (XLSX)
Thesis
While extended knowledge has been built for shallow coastal systems and considerable attention given to the deep sea in recent decades, knowledge of the intermediate depth, circalittoral or mesophotic (ca. 30 to >150 m) zone, has remained elusive. Advances in technology and safety (e.g., deep diving, remotely operated vehicles -ROVs) have given eco...
Article
Full-text available
Underwater video transect methods using small remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and diver-operated video (DOV) are commonly used in benthic biodiversity assessments. Constraints posed by deeper waters have made surveys of the circalittoral zone (>30 m depth), a particularly challenging problem. Here we compare benthic diversity metrics and cluster...
Book
Full-text available
Este documento sintetiza os resultados de alguns dos principais trabalhos realizados no âmbito do projeto BIOMARES, apresentando uma primeira avaliação da implementação das medidas de conservação e gestão do Parque Marinho Professor Luiz Saldanha. Este Parque Marinho, o primeiro em Portugal continental com um Plano de Gestão efetivo, contém valores...
Article
Visual standardised methods for census of reef fishes have long been used in fisheries management and biolog- ical surveys. However, these tools have inherent sources of bias and the SCUBA divers who perform them are highly constrained in terms of survey time, maximum depth and frequency of sampling. Alternatives like under- water video are thus be...

Questions

Questions (5)
Question
I'm looking for estimates of the world's seabed area below 200 m depth. There is an article with area estimates for depth categories but includes 100 to 11,000m in the deep-sea categories (Costello et al., 2010).
If possible, i'm also looking for estimated total deep-seabed area exploited (fisheries, mining, etc). There's a few regional studies but so far none global, at least one that shows that figure, and many world regions are missing from the literature, so compiling all figures from published work seems impossible.
Any help is much appreciated.
Costello, M. J., Cheung, A., and De Hauwere, N. (2010). Surface area and the seabed area, volume, depth, slope, and topographic variation for the world’s seas, oceans, and countries. Environ. Sci. Technol. 44, 8821–8828. doi:10.1021/es1012752.
Question
I have several 1L bottles frozen at -80 deg.C and need to filter them for eDNA analyses. What is the safest way to melt the water?
i'm testing with two samples by leaving them at 4 deg. C but it takes a very long time (>1.5 days and its still half frozen) and i'm unsure that it won't damadge the DNA, since part of the samples is already liquid since approx. 1 day.
Thanks for any comments on this!
Question
I'm just getting started with Bottleneck analysis and some loci (marine invertebrate) present departure from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Anyone knows or can point to some information on this? I couldn't find anything explaining this particular subject.
Many thanks.
Question
Hello,
there is a lack of a clear definition on mesophotic habitats as species. From the literature it seems that the term was initially (~2008-2009) used only for tropical and subtropical regions in the US and later extended into other regions worldwide, including temperate (mainly Mediterranean) areas. My question is wether people agree on what is a mesophotic community or habitat, and if the definition or the way it is used reflects an ecologically relevant community/habitat/concept?
If it is related to light-dependence, than the temperate Mediterranean rocky reef communities should be included too, as they include light-dependent (with simbionts) corals/octocorals and coralligenous algae? From the literature it also steems that these ecosystems don't necessarily need to include reef building corals (e.g. some mesophotic reefs in Australia are described as having only or mostly octocorals, just like the temperate Mediterranean and nearby Atlantic "mesophotic" communities).
Thank you for your thoughts on this topic.
Question
"Deep" here could mean just circalittoral/mesophotic (~30 - 200m depth, deepest section of the continental shelf). Inaccessible regions of the ocean in under-studied seabeds have no baseline to compare with. When we look at them for the first time (by remote sampling, rov, video) we are tempted to say they look almost "pristine" if we detect e.g. large corals, but we don't know how they looked like in the distant past.

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