Màrio Gabriel Santiago Santos

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University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro | utad · Departamento de Biologia e Ambiente

Considering the present ecological crisis, land use-biodiversity relationships have become a major topic in landscape planning, ecosystem management and ecological restoration. In this scope, consistent patterns of outstanding biodiversity have been identified in agroforestry systems within diverse biogeographic regions and types of management. Emp...

In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) encouraged the specialisation of agriculture and forestry systems by supporting schemes that promoted productivity, despite the socio-ecological changes' detrimental effects on ecosystem services and biodiversity. In the case of mountain viticulture of southern Europe, the adoption of intensive manage...

Agroforestry (AF) is a sustainable land use practice and system that increases the ecosystem services delivery from agricultural lands compared with treeless systems. Agroforestry can be considered a practice when linked to plot scale (silvoarable, silvopasture, homegarden, woody linear landscape strips, and forest farming), and a system when assoc...

Environmental stressors and changes in land use have led to rapid and dramatic species losses and a reduction in associated ecosystem services. Functional diversity has increasingly been suggested as an alternative for evaluating anthropogenic disturbances and restoration programs because it reflects different aspects of the relationship between bi...

Home gardening has a long history that started when humans became sedentary, being traditionally considered an accessible source of food and medicinal plants to treat common illnesses. With trends towards urbanization and industrialization, particularly in the post-World War II period , the importance of home gardens as important spaces for growing...

Climate change threatens established agricultural systems and production, driving the need for adaptation and mitigation strategies. Vitiforestry, an alternative cultivation system combining trees and shrubs in the vineyard, promotes environmental sustainability and offers a possible adaptation strategy to climate change. This work scrutinizes the...

This special issue presents a collection of works presenting novel approaches that combine ecological indicators with remote sensing, spatio-temporal modelling, high resolution climate and virtual reality, to improve management of mountain landscapes, their associated services and sustainability facing socio-ecological changes.

O programa MENO(S)PAUSA+MOVIMENTO, promovido pelo Município de Penafiel em parceria com a Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, o Agrupamento de Centros de Saúde do Tâmega II – Vale do Sousa Sul e o Centro Hospitalar do Tâmega e Sousa, representa um valioso contributo para a vida das mulheres, reconhecendo a importância do trabalho colaborat...

This paper explores the correlations between morphological variability and range dynamics in western Eurasian-Mediterranean flora through a fluctuating asymmetry (FA) perspective across ten climate scenarios. We investigate the potential distribution of Scilla L. and its thermopluviometric correlations, and compare them with other three genera anal...

The winter period, characterized by adverse climatic conditions and scarce food resources, poses significant challenges to aerial insectivorous birds that feed exclusively on flying insects. One such species is the European Crag Martin (Ptyonoprogne rupestris). The lack of ecological and ethological information hinders our understanding of the spec...

Grassland bird populations in the Mediterranean lowlands have declined dramatically over the past few decades. This decline is due to a combination of factors, including changes in land use and farming practices as well as the impacts of climate change. In particular, more intensive agricultural methods have played a significant role in this reduct...

Evaluations of the sustainability of the viticulture associated with wine production are still scarce in the literature. Usually, the ‘carbon footprint’ assumes the environmental dimension, while the economic pillar is focused on market orientation. In the present work, the integration of both was tested using a case study supported in a six-year s...

The mechanisms shaping biodiversity in agroecosystems and particularly in agroforestry are mostly unknown, difficult to understand and predict, and remain largely elusive and challenging. The relation between planned biodiversity, the species chosen by the farmer, and associated biodiversity, the species that are able to adapt and thrive in agrofor...

Participatory assessment in the Paiva River, Portugal

Mediterranean mountain peatlands are unique ecosystems because of their distinct hydrology and environmental conditions, as well as being home to a vast array of rare and endemic species. Due to anthropogenic activities and ongoing climate change, mountain peatlands are one of the most endangered ecosystems in Mediterranean areas. Climate scenarios...

Os Carvalhais constituem um património natural e social de grande valor, representando a floresta própria de muitas zonas do território português. Possuem várias valências, funções e usos, essenciais para o ambiente, a vida e a sociedade. O Projecto Bosques - Carvalhal, baseando-se numa ampla experiência e conhecimento, envolveu um conjunto de acti...

Editorial on the Research Topic Can the trees save the crops? Predicting the services provided by traditional and novel agroforests in changing Mediterranean landscapes

Considering the worldwide continuous threats to biodiversity, citizen science derived from ecotourism is considered evermore a fundamental strategy to get relevant information concerning population trends and anthropogenic threats but also to support ecosystem management and sustainable local development. Citizen science platforms where tourists re...

A growing body of evidence indicates that living close to nature is associated with better health and well-being. However, the literature still lacks studies analyzing the benefits of this proximity for sleep and obesity, particularly in women. The purpose of this study was to explore how distance to natural spaces is reflected in women's physical...

2022): Habitat selection and foraging preference of the endangered addax (Addaxnasomaculatus) in a fenced wildlife reserve within its historic range: insights for supporting effective reintroduction, African Zoology, Reintroduction of species should be based on ecological knowledge, which is fundamental to enhancing the probability of success, but...

Introduction: Menopause marks an extensive period of hormonal changes in women. Estrogen depletion, combined with the aging process, increases fat mass, particularly intra-abdominal fat, and generates a decrease in muscle and bone mass, affecting women's usual levels of physical activity (PA) and compromising their quality of life. Exposure to the...

Purpose Examine the association of visits to the natural environment, connectedness to nature, physical activity, and the adoption of pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) in individuals aged 18 years or older. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting City of Vila Real, located in the north of Portugal. Subjects We recruited 194 individuals (61 men an...

Throughout the last decades, the increasing pressure of anthropogenic (climate and land-use) changes has been a major impact on biodiversity in several regions and habitat types. These drivers have disturbed the timing of reproduction in animals and plants as well as the migration of animals resulting in changes in population size and species distr...

Literature on the relationship of economic with environmental and social factors of grape production is very scarce. The analysis through the 'Carbon Footprint' has been corresponding to the environmental dimension, while the economic and social pillars have emerged in a market-oriented logic and strategies potentially influencing consumer behavior...

The moon cycle has long been recognized as a driving factor of animals' behavioural patterns. However, its influence on seabirds' nocturnal behaviour remains poorly understood. Using a long-term GPS tracking dataset from Cory's and Cape Verde shearwaters (Calonectris borealis and Calonectris edwardsii, respectively) in the Berlengas, Azores, Madeir...

Hiking is a natural exercise that has become one the most popular outdoor activities, promoting physical fitness and de-stress without large investments or special equipment. However, hiking has downsides, particularly in the areas in which it takes place. From soil compaction and erosion to disturbance and ecological impacts, mounting evidence sho...

Although deciduous forests are usually associated with high levels of arthropod availability, bats seem to adjust their phenological requirements also as a response to other ecological and environmental conditions. In order to assess the potential influence of these conditions on bat activity phenological patterns, a peri-urban deciduous forest was...

The sawfly Macrophya (Macrophya) militaris (Klug, 1817) (Hymenoptera, Symphyta, Tenthredinidae) is reported from Portugal for the first time, with a record from the northern region (Guimarães).

Understanding how communities respond to anthropogenic disturbance is considered a stepping-stone to support decision-making by environmental managers and restoration ecology. In endangered biodiverse regions, such as the Neotropics, ecological indicators are particularly useful, by enlighten possible diversity trends and functional shifts. Our obj...

RESuMO A perda de biodiversidade e a atual extinção em massa difere de todas as outras por ser impulsionada por uma única espécie-o Homem. Os invertebrados não fogem à regra, sendo um dos grupos de seres vivos mais representativos do planeta, não apenas em diversidade, mas também ao nível da sua importância nos ecossistemas. Urge avaliar as implica...

The worldwide decline of seabird populations due to the combined effects of global and regional changes is creating immense challenges for managers and conser-vationists. Predicting population responses to proposed management strategies could provide the most effective tools to prevent, halt and reverse ongoing declines. System dynamic modelling fr...

The effects of climate change are increasingly noticed worldwide, and crops are likely to be impacted in direct and indirect ways. Thus, it is urgent to adopt pliable strategies to reduce and/or mitigate possible adverse effects to meet the growing demand for sustainable and resilient food production. Monoculture cropping is globally the most commo...

Este Guia, para além de uma experiência de leitura, é um auxiliar de campo para todos quanto queiram iniciar-se na observação e identificação da avifauna. Existe a referência a 100 espécies de aves, com fotografias, que na sua maioria são fáceis de observar em diferentes espaços naturais e urbanos de Guimarães. A publicação resulta ainda do Projet...

Spiders have been increasingly used as environmental and ecological indicators in conservation and ecosystem management. In the Neotropics, there is a shortage of information regarding spiders’ taxonomies and ecological responses to anthropogenic disturbances. To unravel these hitches, we tested the possibility of using high-level diversity and hig...

Projetos apresentados à Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, de conclusão das Bolsas de Inicio à Investigação atribuídas aos formandos da Escola de Verão “EcoCampus Living Lab - Educação para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável”

De forma a demonstrar a aplicabilidade das metodologias apresen-tadas, são descritos vários casos de estudo, organizados de uma forma hierárquica da base para o topo tendo em consideração as escalas de estudo da ecologia, isto é, num gradiente que vai das aplicações em contextos onde o enfoque recai sobre a importância de populações/espécies como i...

As paisagens atuais são sistemas dinâmicos, moldados pela interação de processos naturais e antropogénicos (e.g., TURNER, 2010; SANTOS et al., 2016b). Essa dinâmica acarreta alterações que, em muitos casos, modificam de forma os sistemas naturais, nomeadamente distribuição das espécies, estrutura das comunidades e o funcionamento dos ecossistemas....

Over the past decade in Europe, honeybees (Apis mellifera) – important pollinators of wildflowers and cultivated crops – have decreased in abundance due to various factors. A concerning development is the recent introduction of the yellow-legged hornet (Vespa velutina nigrithorax; top), an efficient bee predator endemic to Southeast Asia whose nich...

Neotropical caves located in pristine ecosystems harbor high biodiversity but face functional shifts and degradation interlinked with aboveground changes. Cave-roosting bats have been proposed as integrity indicators of karst landscapes considering their sensitive to both the underground and aboveground characteristics and resources. In the present...

Sustainable management of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes is a European Union objective supported on multifunctional agri-environment measures. The effectiveness of specific practices implemented to reverse declines in farmland biodiversity should be monitored using straightforward methodologies and indicators. This work outlines an innovat...

Oceans are extremely dynamic environments, which poses challenges for top-predators such as seabirds to find food resources. Yet, seabirds evolved sensorial abilities (olfactory senses) along with complex behaviours (social information transfer through local enhancement) to improve foraging efficiency. Using the Cory’s shearwater (Calonectris borea...

Despite the relevant services associated with insect pollinators, several species are considered to have undergone severe and widespread declines, which raise concerns about the future sustainability of ecosystems. Reliable estimates of pollinators' visitation rates to flowers are thus fundamental for supporting management and mitigation actions. A...

Changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services are usually evaluated using taxonomic indicators or, to a lesser extent, functional indicators. The present work adds new insights on the links between taxonomic indicators and functional indicators within a disturbance gradient in the Brazilian Amazon. Ground dwelling beetles’ functional groups were u...

Ecological monitoring research relies heavily on signals to detect ecosystem changes, making the selection of indicators a crucial methodological requirement. Over the years, individual species and species assemblages have been widely used, thereby, giving rise to reference methods that support the detection of ecological indicators. One such metho...

ALICE Project: Linking terrestrial and riverine models to improve biodiversity and ecosystem services in Atlantic Landscapes João Santos1,2, André Fonseca1,2, João Cabral1,2, José Aranha1,2, Martinho Lourenço1, Rui Cortes1,2, Mário Santos1,2, Simone Varandas1,2, Sandra M. Monteiro1,2, Vanessa Queirós1, Luis F. Fernandes1,2, Fernando Pacheco1, João...

High-resolution river catchment simulation to protect and promote ecosystem services: the ALICE project André Fonseca1,2, João Santos1,2, João Cabral1,2, José Aranha1,2, Martinho Lourenço1, Simone Varandas1,2, Sandra M. Monteiro1,2, Rui Cortes1,2, Mário Santos1,2, Vanessa Queirós1, Luis Filipe Fernandes1,2, Fernando Pacheco1, João Paulo Moura1,2,...

Over a decade after the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment an increasing number of ES modeling applications from local to global scales have been created. ALICE, Improving the management of Atlantic Landscapes: aCcounting for bIodiversity and eCosystem sErvices,is a project that will develop a comprehensive package of new methods, t...

Over a decade after the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment an increasing number of ES modeling applications from local to global scales have been created. ALICE, Improving the management of Atlantic Landscapes: aCcounting for bIodiversity and eCosystem sErvices,is a project that will develop a comprehensive package of new methods, t...

Wild animals are maintained in Zoological facilities for purposes of education, conservation, research, and recreation. Several studies have proven that the surroundings of an animal's artificial habitat, as well as environmental enrichment techniques, are factors that influence behaviour and have an impact on animals' welfare. In the present work...

Engaging communities into ecosystem services – Valuing Blue and Green Infrastructures in Atlantic landscapes Vanessa Queirós1, João Cabral1,2, André Fonseca1,2, Martinho Lourenço1, Simone Varandas1,2, João Santos1,2, José Aranha1,2, Mário Santos1,2, Sandra M. Monteiro1,2, Rui Cortes1,2, Luis F. Fernandes1,2, Fernando Pacheco1, João Paulo Moura1,2,...

The ecosystem services approach represents an important and still evolving concept that has the potential to redefine perspectives in ecosystem management by linking different scientific areas within a common framework. Birdwatching is a recreational ecosystem service whose importance has grown in recent years, providing support for rural economies...

The growing concern about future challenges of energy security and climate change has led to the expansion of renewable energy production, with a special emphasis on wind power. Despite the environmental advantages of wind power, it's important to assess the impacts caused by the presence of wind farms on wildlife, particularly on species also affe...

Temporal and spatial variation in Ground beetles diversity was described for neotropical ecosystems. The present study evaluated the seasonal patterns of Ground beetles assemblages within habitats in the Brazilian Amazon, to determine the most appropriate time-window to undertake significant ecological sampling. The study area comprised the most re...

Neotropical forests are extremely diverse ecosystems, listed within the biological hotspots of our planet. However, species from these forests are threatened by diverse anthropogenic activities. Small dung beetles (Scarabaeidae, Aphodiinae) assemblages were studied within different habitats of the Brazilian Amazon. The monitored habitats encompasse...

Litterfall plays an important role in nutrient cycling and maintenance of soil fertility in terrestrial ecosystems. We gauged the effects of anthropogenic impacts on the production, decomposition and seasonality of litterfall in primary and secondary forests within a tropical landscape of the Brazilian Amazon. We hypothesized that leaf litter quant...

Context Current shifts in biodiversity are driven by multiple processes of environmental and landscape change. Particularly, land use/land cover (LU/LC) dynamics are among the major drivers of biodiversity loss worldwide. Objectives In this study we aim to explore the applicability of a new modelling framework to predict top predators’ responses t...

ALICE, Improving the management of Atlantic Landscapes: accouting for bIodiversity and eCosystem sErvices,will develop a comprehensive package of new methods, tools and procedures to identify barriers to the delivery of benefits from Blue and Green Infrastructures (BGI) implementation and to improve the characterization of biodiversity and the valu...

Ground Beetles (Carabidae) have been suggested to be used as indicators of ecological status under the effects of anthropogenic land use and land cover changes in highly biodiverse regions such as the Neotropics. In this study Ground Beetles' assemblages from a region in the Brazilian Amazon were investigated for evaluating their applicability as d...

Worldwide landscape changes and the uncertainty about its impacts on species abundances, distributions and on ecosystems structure and functioning, have been increasing the value of modelling tools in a very obvious way. Thirteen years ago, the first holistic stochastic dynamic methodology (StDM) application was published (Ecological Indicators 3(4...

In the Neotropics, Rove Beetles (Staphylinidae) are known to be especially diverse and abundant, but studies in this region are still incipient and the information is dispersed in the scientific literature. In this work the responses of the Rove Beetles to gradients of disturbance in representative ecosystems of the Brazilian Amazon were evaluated....

Temporal and spatial variation in dung beetles abundances is a pattern observed in many tropical forests. The present study evaluated the seasonal patterns of dung beetles in a range of increasingly disturbed ecosystems of the state of Pará, northern Brazil, to identify valuable disturbance indicators. The areas included native forest, agriculture,...

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging disease caused by a white psychrophilic fungus named Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), which colonizes the ears, nose and wing membranes of hibernating bats (1). In the US, this colonization leads to pathological lesions and is the cause of bat mass mortality nation-wide, earning the differentiation between...

Invasive species are increasing in number, extent and impact worldwide. Effective invasion management has thus become a core socio-ecological challenge. To tackle this challenge, integrating spatial-temporal dynamics of invasion processes with modelling approaches is a promising approach. The inclusion of dynamic processes in such modelling framewo...

Dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) are considered essential for enhancing the physicochemical characteristics of soils, principally by changing organic materials (e.g. dead animals, faeces, fruits e leaf litter). This study compared the species richness and abundance of dung beetles captured using various types of baits, to demon...

Habitat loss and degradation are frequently associated with negative effects on biodiversity in natural and semi-natural landscapes. Innovative spatio-temporal modelling tools may be valuable to support the design and optimization of conservation strategies for endangered species in a context of changes in land use and land cover (LULC). The Red-bi...

Scarab beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) have been used to investigate the effects of environmental disturbances on forest structure and diversity. This group is recognized as sensitive to habitat perturbations and ecosystem changes. Here we examine the effects of anthropogenic impacts on Scarabaeidae composition , testing the following hypotheses...