João Loureiro

João Loureiro
University of Coimbra | UC · Centre for Functional Ecology - Science for People & the Planet

PhD in Biology
Co-PI of the FLOWer Lab at CFE-UC and Associate Professor at Department of Life Sciences, FCTUC

About

235
Publications
86,059
Reads
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Introduction
I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Life Sciences (with tenure), Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra. My current interests are focused in the study of the ecology and evolution of plant species. Together with Sílvia Castro, coordinates the FLOWer Lab, whose objectives are to study plant diversification and sympatric speciation through polyploidization and plant-pollinator interactions.
Additional affiliations
October 2020 - November 2020
University of Coimbra
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
February 2009 - October 2020
University of Coimbra
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
January 2008 - December 2008
Charles University in Prague
Position
  • PostDoc Position
Description
  • http://www.ibot.cas.cz/fcm/home.html
Education
October 2002 - May 2007
University of Aveiro
Field of study
September 1997 - July 2002
University of Aveiro
Field of study

Publications

Publications (235)
Article
Full-text available
Natural hybridization and polyploidy are currently recognized as drivers of biodiversity despite early sceptical views about their importance. The Mediterranean region is a biodiversity hotspot where geological and climatic events have created numerous opportunities for speciation through hybridization and polyploidy. Still, our knowledge on the fr...
Article
A critical aspect for obtaining accurate, reliable, and high‐resolution estimates of nuclear DNA content is the release of nuclei from the cytoplasm in sufficient amounts, while maintaining their integrity throughout the analysis, protecting their DNA from degradation by endonucleases, and enabling stoichiometric DNA staining. In embryophytes, the...
Article
Polyploidy plays a significant role in the evolution and diversification of flowering plants. In several polyploid complexes, high morphological variability and plasticity coupled with cytogenetic diversity make it difficult to disentangle their evolutionary history. The main goal of this study was to gain insights into the role of whole genome dup...
Article
Background and aims: Polyploidy is an important contributor to sympatric speciation and assortative mating is a key mechanism driving cytotype interactions at contact zones. While strong reproductive barriers can mediate the coexistence of different cytotypes in sympatry, positive frequency-dependent mating disadvantage ultimately drives the trans...
Article
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Polyploidization is a widespread mechanism of evolutionary divergence in flowering plants. Ecological divergence of polyploid lineages has been proposed as a key process shaping the distribution of cytotypes in nature (niche shift hypothesis); however, evidence for the role of niche separation in replicated diploid-polyploid species pairs is still...
Article
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La Reunión Anual de ECOFLOR se realizó por primera vez fuera de las fronteras de España
Article
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Crop pollinator dependence (PD) values are key when assessing a pollinator's contribution to agriculture, guiding management plans and policies for sustainable crop production. However, the available global compilations of crops PD are outdated and neglect variability between related crops and accessions (variety/cultivar), as well as pollen limita...
Article
Full-text available
The impacts of climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution influence the living experiences of the various members of communities that rely on agriculture, shaping the adaptation responses to those phenomena and actions towards sustainable development. This study aims to understand how members of rural communities in Morocco perceive the cau...
Article
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Premise The western North American fern genus Pentagramma (Pteridaceae) is characterized by complex patterns of ploidy variation, an understanding of which is critical to comprehending both the evolutionary processes within the genus and its current diversity. Methods We undertook a cytogeographic study across the range of the genus, using a combi...
Article
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Bees are important actors in terrestrial ecosystems and are recognised for their prominent role as pollinators. In the Iberian Peninsula, approximately 1,100 bee species are known, with nearly 100 of these species being endemic to the Peninsula. A reference collection of DNA barcodes, based on morphologically identified bee specimens, representing...
Article
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Somatic mutations potentially play a role in plant evolution, but common expectations pertaining to plant somatic mutations remain insufficiently tested. Unlike in most animals, the plant germline is assumed to be set aside late in development, leading to the expectation that plants accumulate somatic mutations along growth. Therefore, several pred...
Article
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Honey bee colonies have great societal and economic importance. The main challenge that beekeepers face is keeping bee colonies healthy under ever-changing environmental conditions. In the past two decades, beekeepers that manage colonies of Western honey bees (Apis mellifera) have become increasingly concerned by the presence of parasites and path...
Article
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Pollination is a crucial ecosystem service for maintaining plant communities and food production. 75% of the main crops depend on or benefit from pollination services provided by animal pollinators. However, when these services are insufficient and/or inefficient, crops experience pollen limitation with, often, lower associated yield, which may tra...
Preprint
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The evolution of mating systems in plants is central for understanding the rise of their diversity on Earth. The transition towards self-fertilization is a well-known example of convergent evolution although the opposite direction is expected to be forbidden according to evolutionary theories. We suggest that the ploidy level could promote changes...
Article
Environmental degradation constitutes a disruptive force in man‐made and natural systems. The projected duplication of the frequency and duration of meteorological drought will contribute to a situation of water scarcity, which is expected to negatively impact the agricultural sector. This study focuses on Souss‐Massa, Morocco, a leading agricultur...
Article
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Flow cytometry (FCM) is now the most widely used method to determine ploidy levels and genome size of plants. To get reliable estimates and allow reproducibility of measurements, the methodology should be standardized and follow the best practices in the field. In this article, we discuss instrument calibration and quality control and various instr...
Article
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Video abstracts, filmed versions of scientific written abstracts, are an exciting trend in the world of online science videos, but, to date, the classification, conception and reception of these videos still need to be explored. This study aims to identify the most and least valued features, exploring future guidelines for producing an effective vi...
Article
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The present taxonomic status of Schenkia elegans, endemism recently described in the Iberian Peninsula, and its relationship with the sympatric and the nearest morphological species Schenkia spicata and Exaculum pusillum is revaluated. Different kinds of evidence based on plant morphology, ploidy estimation by flow cytometry, karyotype characterisa...
Article
An essential prerequisite to safeguard pollinator species is characterisation of the multifaceted diversity of crop pollinators and identification of the drivers of pollinator community changes across biogeographical gradients. The extent to which intensive agriculture is associated with the homogenisation of biological communities at large spatial...
Article
Polyploidy is a pervasive phenomenon in nature and has significantly contributed to the adaptive evolution of plants. The conditions necessary for the spread of neopoly-ploids in populations of the diploid progenitor are limited; however, the superior competitive ability of neopolyploids may promote its establishment. Here, we assess the contributi...
Article
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In recent years, the knowledge of the Portuguese bee fauna has gained significant updates, proving there is considerable potential to clarify and discover new bee species at the regional and national scales. Pollination ecology studies can produce new relevant records with expanded study areas and periods of the year compared to historical national...
Poster
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Os impactos das alterações climáticas incluem aumento das temperaturas médias, subida do nível das águas do mar e eventos meteorológicos extremos como secas, vagas de calor e inundações (IPCC, 2022). A estes impactos acrescentam-se outros fatores como a perda de biodiversidade, poluição e deterioração das propriedades dos solos, constituindo o que...
Article
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Purpose This paper aims to define a proposal of a theoretical–methodological framework aimed at supporting researchers in conducting studies on the topic of environmental mobility. Design/methodology/approach The complexity of environmental change and the frequent subsequent human mobility raises challenges in the research process. The variety of...
Article
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Flow cytometry has emerged as a uniquely flexible, accurate, and widely applicable technology for the analysis of plant cells. One of its most important applications centers on the measurement of nuclear DNA contents. This chapter describes the essential features of this measurement, outlining the overall methods and strategies, but going on to pro...
Article
Premise: The relationships between reproductive investment, phenotype, and fitness have been broadly studied in cross-pollinated plants in contrast to selfing species, which are considered less interesting in this area because they are supposed to be a dead end in any evolutionary pathway. Still, selfing plants are unique systems to study these qu...
Article
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RESUMO Os insetos são um grupo funcionalmente diverso, com papéis economicamente relevantes nos principais serviços do ecossistema, tais como a polinização. A tendência atual de perda de biodiversidade e consequente degradação dos serviços dos ecossistemas prestados pelos insetos está a criar uma pressão adicional na agricultura moderna, principalm...
Article
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Within Eukaryotes, fungi are the typical representatives of haplontic life cycles. Basidiomycota fungi are dikaryotic in extensive parts of their life cycle, but diploid nuclei are known to form only in basidia. Among Basidiomycota, the Pucciniales are notorious for presenting the most complex life cycles, with high host specialization, and for the...
Preprint
Full-text available
Somatic mutations potentially play a role in plant evolution, but common expectations pertaining to plant somatic mutations remain insufficiently tested. Unlike in most animals, the plant germline is assumed to be set aside late in development, leading to the expectation that plants accumulate somatic mutations along growth. Therefore, several pred...
Chapter
Pollination is a key ecosystem service that is, however, under threat due to multiple environmental pressures, such as climate change, compromising crop production. The main goal of this study was to investigate how extreme events due to climate change affect flower traits and plant-pollinator interactions, and how this impacts fruit production, us...
Chapter
Climate change has led countries to develop mitigation strategies and policies to support populations in their adaptation to its impacts. By analyzing the climate change adaptation policies it is possible to understand how human mobility is included in (or excluded from) those same policies. In the case of Morocco, for example, the National Plan Ag...
Article
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The constant changes societies have gone through over time make it necessary to adjust educational methodologies to new contexts. At the same time, the way we communicate science has changed with the advent of new technologies and the COVID-19 pandemic. In this new reality, video emerges as one of the essential tools for science dissemination. Vide...
Article
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Introduction The high frequency of polyploidy in the evolutionary history of many plant groups occurring in the Mediterranean region is likely a consequence of its dynamic paleogeographic and climatic history. Polyploids frequently have distinct characteristics that allow them to overcome the minority cytotype exclusion. Such traits may enable poly...
Article
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Video abstracts are audiovisual representations of a scientific abstract that a researcher can use to complement an article. As a science communication tool, they stand as a novel and exciting way to present scientific discoveries, explore new formats, and reach new audiences. In this practice insight, we share the experience of creating a video ab...
Preprint
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Pollinator dependence (PD) of a crop is a key estimate for assessing nature’s contribution to agriculture. However, currently available global compilations of crops PD are outdated and neglect variability between accessions (variety/cultivar) and information on pollen deposition limitation. Here we provide an updated list of PD values for 116 polli...
Article
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Polyploidy has important ecological effects, including ploidy-mediated effects on morphology, breeding system and ecological tolerances. However, there is still little comprehensive research available to test its adaptive significance and its role in driving distributional patterns. This work aimed to assess the contribution of genome duplications...
Article
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Calendula is one of the most taxonomically complex genera within the Asteraceae family due to hybridization, polyploidization events, and production of a highly variable morphology of the achenes. Considering the complexity of Calendula, this study was conducted to extend the understanding of the relationships between SW Mediterranean taxa, and ass...
Article
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The presence of the invasive species Halyomorpha halys (Stål, 1855) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), was first confirmed in Portugal in late 2018. In this note, an update to the known distribution in the Portuguese territories, including the first record in the Madeiran Archipelago, is presented. In Portugal, the BM...
Article
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Recent contributions with reviews at the national scale and occasional discoveries set the number of mainland Por-tuguese bee species at 720. However, regional edaphoclimatic singularities and sampling effort differences suggest there is an urgent need to expand sampling efforts to largely unexplored regions. Beira Baixa (central part of the Portug...
Preprint
Premise The relationships between reproductive investment, phenotype and fitness have been broadly studied in cross-pollinated plants in contrast to selfing species, which are considered less interesting in this area because they are supposed to be a dead-end in any evolutionary pathway. Still, selfing plants are unique systems to study these quest...
Article
Full-text available
Bees are a diverse group with more than 1000 species known from the Iberian Peninsula. They have increasingly received special attention due to their important role as pollinators and providers of ecosystem services. In addition, various rapid human-induced environmental changes are leading to the decline of some of its populations. However, we kno...
Article
In theory, any plant tissue providing intact nuclei in sufficient quantity is suitable for nuclear DNA content estimation using flow cytometry (FCM). While this certainly opens a wide variety of possible applications of FCM, especially when compared to classical karyological techniques restricted to tissues with active cell division, tissue selecti...
Article
Flow cytometry (FCM) is currently the most widely‐used method to establish nuclear DNA content in plants. Since simple, 1‐3‐parameter, flow cytometers, which are sufficient for most plant applications, are commercially available at a reasonable price, the number of laboratories equipped with these instruments, and consequently new FCM users, has gr...
Article
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Tuberaria lignosa (Cistaceae family) has excellent properties as an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and antiproliferative/ anti-tumoural. This work aimed to establish a routine micropropagation protocol of T. lignosa to supply high-quality plants for the pharmaceutical industry. Apical shoot cuttings (0.5 cm long) were grown on basal...
Article
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Intensification of agricultural landscapes to fulfil increased global food demands has dramatically impacted biodiversity and ecosystem services. Several pollinator groups, which are vital for the maintenance of pollinator‐dependent crops, have been severely affected by this intensification process. Management tools, such as the implementation of a...
Article
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The repeated, rapid and often pronounced patterns of evolutionary divergence observed in insular plants, or the ‘plant island syndrome’, include changes in leaf phenotypes, growth, as well as the acquisition of a perennial lifestyle. Here, we sequence and describe the genome of the critically endangered, Galápagos-endemic species Scalesia atractylo...
Article
Background and Aims Hybridization is a common and important force in plant evolution. One of its outcomes is introgression - the transfer of small genomic regions from one taxon to another by hybridization and repeated backcrossing. This process is believed to be common in glacial refugia, where range expansions and contractions can lead to cycles...
Article
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Festuca indigesta subsp. indigesta (Poaceae) is endemic to the southeast of Spain, and until recently, it was considered that its range of distribution was restricted to the siliceous core of Sierra Nevada. However, it has been recently extended in the territory to others calcareous mountains. This study investigates the cytogenetic variability thr...
Article
Insects are a functionally diverse group, with economically relevant roles on key ecosystem services, such as pollination. The current trend of biodiversity loss and consequent degradation of ecosystem services delivered by insects is leading to additional pressure on modern agriculture, particularly in crops that depend on insects for pollination....
Article
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Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop y...
Preprint
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Oceanic archipelagos comprise multiple disparate environments over small geographic areas and are isolated from other biotas. These conditions have led to some of the most spectacular adaptive radiations, which have been key to our understanding of evolution, and offer a unique chance to characterise the genomic basis underlying rapid and pronounce...
Article
Full-text available
Habitat loss is currently a major threat to biodiversity, affecting species interactions, such as plant–pollinator interactions. This is particularly important in self-incompatible plants relying on pollinators to reproduce and sustain their populations. Here, we evaluated how habitat loss affects the pollination system, plant individual–pollinator...
Article
Despite the key role of pollination in the production of many crops, this is still one of the least understood factors in the orchard context. Pollen limitation, and impacts on crop production, is influenced by several potentially interacting factors such as crop or crop variety degree of dependence on cross pollination and on pollinators, diversit...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background and Aims Hybridization is a common and important force in plant evolution. One of its outcomes is introgression - the transfer of small genomic regions from one taxon to another by hybridization and repeated backcrossing. This process is believed to be common in glacial refugia, where range expansions and contractions can lead to cycles...
Article
Full-text available
Because naturalized and invasive plant species have disproportionately smaller genome sizes compared to all angiosperms, genome size has been proposed as a general predictor of invasiveness. The family Cactaceae includes some of the most important invasive species worldwide, and it is one of the plant families with lowest number of genome size esti...
Article
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Inadequate quantity and quality of pollen reaching the stigmas decreases the sexual reproductive output of plants, compromising yield. Still, the current extent of pollen limitation affecting yield (i.e., pollination deficits) is poorly quantified. This study is aimed at quantifying pollination deficits in kiwifruit orchards, a dioecious plant with...
Conference Paper
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Genome size (GS) displays a broad variation across land plants. Although it is considered to be influenced by selection pressures depending on different environmental conditions and life-history strategies, the underlying drivers of GS variation across lineages remain elusive. Latitude gradients of GS tend to show contrasting patterns among differe...
Article
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Polyploidy has played an important evolutionary role in the genus Festuca (Poaceae), and several ploidy levels (ranging from 2n = 2x = 14 to 2n = 12x = 84) have been detected to date. This study aimed to estimate the genome size and ploidy level of two subspecies belonging to the F. yvesii polyploid complex by flow cytometry and chromosome counting...
Article
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Genome size variation is of crucial biological importance, however variation in genome sizes within a single individual/organism is rarely reported except for some species groups such as algae where polygenomy, endopolyploidy and mixopolyploidy have previously been reported. The red algal genus Porphyra forms part of very profitable marine food pro...
Article
Genome size information is sparse across fungi, with information being available for less than 2000 species. So far, most records have been obtained using static, microscope‐based cytometry methods or derived from genome sequencing projects. Flow cytometry is now considered the state‐of‐the‐art method for obtaining genome size measurements, and app...
Article
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In recent years, the use of videos by the scientific community has evolved continuously. Researchers, communicators, and other players are using audiovisual media to reinvent their stories, to deconstruct complex phenomena and to increase the outreach and impact of their scientific publications. An example of this trend is the video abstract: an au...
Article
The Balkan Peninsula is recognized as one of the hotspots of biodiversity in Europe. This area has shown since the Last Glacial Maximum appropriate conditions for species diversification and hybridization, which has led to the existence of numerous taxonomically unresolved entities. Here, we focus on the Western Balkans and explore the genetic stru...
Article
Pollen grains are the male gametophytes in a seed‐plant life cycle. Their small, particulate nature and crucial role in the plant reproduction have made them an attractive object of study using flow cytometry (FCM), with a wide range of applications existing in the literature. While methodological considerations for many of these overlap with those...
Article
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Even though plants represent an essential part of our lives offering exploitational, supporting and cultural services, we know very little about the biology of the rarest and most threatened plant species, and even less about their conservation status. Rapid changes in the environment and climate, today more pronounced than ever, affect their fitne...
Article
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Following publication of the original article [1], it has been brought to the authors' attention that in their paper (Rodrigues et al. 2016) they reported the genome size based on 2C values (diploid genome) when it is more common to present it as 1C value.
Conference Paper
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O GO PoliMax tem como objetivo específico incrementar o valor nutricional e comercial dos frutos (pêra ‘Rocha’, maçãs ‘Fuji’ e ‘Reineta’ e cerejas ‘Folfer’) através de uma polinização entomófila eficiente, originando produtos agrícolas diferenciados que promovam a Fruticultura, nacional e internacionalmente. A polinização é indiscutivelmente um fat...
Article
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The presence of the brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys (Stål, 1855) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), in mainland Portugal is confirmed. The European and Iberian distribution of the species is summarized. A possible approach to deal with this problematic pest in the country is briefly discussed.
Preprint
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In this article we are reporting a very unusual result in a plant we call “Pleasant Progress” (Figure 1). “Pleasant Progress” is the result of a hand cross between the diploid hybrid seed parent, (cumberlandense X viscosum) (Towe) (Figure 2), with the tetraploid species pollen parent, R. colemanii. (Figure 3) What is surprising is that “Pleasant Pr...