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33
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Introduction
Current institution
Additional affiliations
March 2022 - present
August 2020 - August 2020
April 2013 - April 2017
Education
January 2015 - April 2017
April 2013 - April 2017
Publications
Publications (33)
Trait-based approaches have gained prominence in assessing the relationships between benthic diversity, habitat structure, and functioning in marine ecosystems. We reviewed the popular trait-based approaches currently used to evaluate the connections between macrobenthic communities and marine soft sediments. We examined techniques mainly based on...
The number of Vibrio-related infections in humans, e.g., by Vibrio vulnificus, has increased along the coasts of the Baltic Sea. Due to climate change, vibriosis risk is expected to increase. It is, therefore, pertinent to design a strategy for mitigation of the vibriosis threat in the Baltic Sea area, but a prerequisite is to identify the environm...
Non-indigenous species (NIS) establish and thrive on floating artificial substrata along mid-latitude shores, which might serve as propagule reservoirs and stepping stones for their dispersal. However, often, the NIS are not able to colonize the adjacent seafloor, where high predation pressure by benthic predators might inhibit them. To test this h...
Introduction
Ecosystem engineers play a pivotal role in shaping habitats through their activities and presence. In shallow Baltic waters, seagrasses, patch-forming mussels, and infaunal clams modify soft bottom habitats, impacting benthic community structure. While the individual effects of these ecosystem engineers are well studied, interactions a...
Biological trait analysis (BTA) is a valuable tool for evaluating changes in community diversity and its link to ecosystem processes as well as environmental and anthropogenic perturbations. Trait-based analytical techniques like BTA rely on standardised datasets of species traits. However, there are currently only a limited number of datasets avai...
This study analyzed how environmental, temporal, and spatial variables influenced the distribution and diversity of waterbird assemblages during the dry and rainy seasons in a subtropical estuarine complex in southern Brazil, a world heritage site. From March 2020 to February 2021, we determined the alpha and beta diversities of waterbird in the Pa...
The rapid reorganization of global biodiversity has triggered an intense research effort to understand its consequences for ecosystem functioning. However, efforts to monitor biodiversity change and evaluate the outcomes for ecosystem states and processes are currently poorly aligned. While most monitoring programs evaluate ecosystem status by repo...
Seabirds are top predators in coastal and pelagic ecosystems that forage at sea but return to land regularly during the breeding season (i.e., central place foragers). This unique life history strategy is directly related to their biological traits and helps define their role as top predators in marine systems. We analysed the effects of physiograp...
Spearfishing, a common activity among Pacific Islanders, has been described to strongly modify the behaviour of target fish species.
Rapa Nui (Easter Island), a remote Chilean oceanic island, has suffered a serious decline in its nearshore fish stocks through overfishing.
In this study, the flight initiation distance (FID) of the Pacific rudderfish...
The presence and distribution of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) were evaluated in spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris) from the Fernando de Noronha Archipelago (Western Atlantic Ocean). Blubber samples (n = 37) were Soxhlet extracted and analyzed using gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry...
Species overexploitation has simplified food webs worldwide, resulting in the degradation of ecosystems relative to their natural state. Fishes are the most important herbivores in many shallow coral reef environments, where they control algal successional processes and promote coral reef resilience. Nowadays, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is suffering...
A large-scale oil spill has reached over 3000 km of the NE Brazilian coast since August 2019. The cause and origin of this spill remain mysterious, and the impacts on coastal ecosystems have not been clearly understood so far. Despite the efforts to remove the oil (mainly from local communities), oil stains are still present in beaches, mangroves,...
Migrating diatoms are microscopic ecosystem engineering organisms that have functional consequences on the seascape scale by significantly contributing to the microphytobenthos biofilm. The microphytobenthos biofilm is a thin photosynthesising layer that covers the sediment on intertidal flats. It fuels the food web, increases sediment stability, a...
Mesophotic ecosystems (50–400 m depth) of the southeastern Pacific have rarely been studied because of the logistical challenges in sampling across this remote zone. This study assessed how oxygen concentrations and other environmental predictors explain variation in echinoderm assemblages at these mesophotic systems, where this group is among the...
Increasing global concern has been raised about the expansion of hypoxia in coastal waters and its potential to impact benthic ecosystems. Upwelling areas offer opportunities to study the effects of hypoxia on benthic communities under natural conditions. We used a biological trait-based approach and estimated functional diversity indices to assess...
Fiddler crabs are important components of intertidal benthic macrofauna in estuarine habitats. However, these invertebrates often inhabit areas under anthropogenic-driven changes. In this study, we evaluated the habitat quality and the population biology of the fiddler crab Uca maracoani (Latreille, 1802) in a mangrove area under anthropogenic infl...
This study aimed to assess how oceanographic variables (depth, water temperature, and phytoplankton biomass) and the proximity to islands and seamounts affect the structure of neustonic polychaete assemblages across the SE Pacific Ocean. We used data from 2 oceanographic cruises and online databases to analyze how different environmental variables...
• For Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and its largest islet, Motu Nui, the change of the species assemblage over time was analysed, and a trait‐based approach to evaluate the potential losses in seabird function across the past centuries was applied. At a finer scale, the seasonal changes in seabird species composition in the current seabird assemblage wa...
The hyper-oligotrophic waters of the South Pacific Subtropical Gyre (SPSG) and the productive coastal Humboldt Current System (HCS) constitute an extreme nutrient gradient in the eastern South Pacific Ocean.Rich and dense fouling communities are known from floating objects in the HCS, but they have not been studied in the SPSG and
it is not known w...
Aim
For seabirds, food supplies and nest sites are largely driven by oceanographic gradients and island habitats, respectively. Research into seabirds’ ecological roles in insular ecosystems is crucial to understanding processes that structure seabird nesting assemblages. We examined the influence of island physiography and oceanographic factors on...
Understanding animals' daily activity patterns such as foraging and resting is key to the effective conservation of individuals, populations, and species. Expanding habitat usage by humans today is likely one of the major factors influencing animal habitat use and behavior. Rapa Nui, a remote Chilean island located at the easternmost corner of the...
The capacity of an infaunal organism to explore resources in a given sedimentary habitat is reflected by its bioturbation-related traits. Functional traits such as body size, mobility, and type of burrowing behavior reflect the species bioturbation potential and, therefore, their role in affecting sediment characteristics. In this study, we applied...
Hard bottoms can negatively affect the surrounding infauna by hosting predatory fauna and modifying local hydrodynamics and sedimentation rates. Considering that these effects depend on the distance to the hard bottoms, we expected that the infaunal structure and recolonization would change accordingly. We assessed whether the distance from a rocky...
We assess the current knowledge of the benthic assemblages in the
Southeastern Brazil Marine Ecoregion (SBME), which extends for approximately 1200 km of coastline and includes seven major estuarine systems from Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro to Babitonga Bay (or São Francisco do Sul) in Santa Catarina. The high ecosystem diversity of SBME putativ...
We assess the current knowledge of the benthic assemblages in the Southeastern Brazil Marine Ecoregion (SBME), which extends for approximately 1200 km of coastline and includes seven major estuarine systems from Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro to Babitonga Bay (or São Francisco do Sul) in Santa Catarina. The high ecosystem diversity of SBME putativ...
Innovative approaches are needed to help understanding how species diversity is related to the latitudinal gradient at large or small scales. We have applied a novel approach, by combining morphological and biological traits, to assess the relative importance of the large scale latitudinal gradient and regional morphodynamic drivers in shaping the...
Intertidal flats are highly productive areas that support large numbers of invertebrates, fish, and birds. Benthic diatoms are essential for the function of tidal flats. They fuel the benthic food web by forming a thin photosynthesizing compartment in the top-layer of the sediment that stretches over the vast sediment flats during low tide. However...
We analyzed the effects of sewage discharge on a subtropical estuary by comparing the functional diversity of intertidal macroinvertebrate assemblages in contaminated with non-contaminated reference areas. Functional structure was assessed using biological traits analysis (BTA) and four multivariate indices (FRic, FEve, FDis and Rao's Q) of functio...
Negative responses of infauna close to rocky substrates are well known to subtidal bottoms, but there are few studies addressing similar intertidal habitats. We tested the hypothesis that the proximity to rocky shores negatively affects the density and richness of intertidal infauna of tidal flats by assessing infaunal variation across the increasi...
The continuous excavation of burrows by fiddler crabs generates bioturbation in the sediment, which can be estimated from burrow morphology. The aim of the present study was to describe the burrow morphology of Uca uruguayensis and U. leptodactylus and its relationship with demography of resident individuals and to estimate the level of bioturbatio...
Building of soil structures is observed in a variety of semi-terrestrial crustaceans. In fiddler crabs (Genus Uca), this behavior occurs in several species, some of which build structures that are largely ornamental and others construct barriers that are apparently for defense. Although there is a relative abundance of studies on this type of behav...
Hydrodynamism is an environmental stressor on marine communities with effects on populations of intertidal organisms. Microphrys bicornutus is a crab species associated with secondary substrates on rocky shores and little is known about its population dynamics and its relation to the shore hydrodynamics. The aim of this study is to describe the pop...
Questions
Question (1)
I want to analyze the relationships between environmental heterogeneity and complexity with the infaunal structure and distribution. My study area is an intertidal sand flat with mixed types of biogenic and abiotic structures, like shells, small rocks, algae, worm tubes and small vascular plants. Does anybody knows what is the best way to measure the small scale environmental complexity and heterogeneity in such environments?
