Miriam Romagosa

• PhD
• Researcher at Okeanos Center - University of the Azores

Animal songs can change within and between populations as the result of different evolutionary processes. When these processes include cultural transmission, the social learning of information or behaviours from conspecifics, songs can undergo rapid evolutions because cultural novelties can emerge more frequently than genetic mutations. Understandi...

Economic globalization and the continuous search for food, energy and raw materials led to an estimated 3 dB/decade increase of ocean noise intensity. Determining the level of anthropogenic noise, the so-called excess noise, and building identifiable meaningful indicators for supporting marine management policies currently requires extensive observ...

Mechanisms driving song learning and conformity are still poorly known yet fundamental to understand the behavioural ecology of animals. Broadening the taxonomic range of these studies and interpreting song variation under the scope of cultural evolution will increase our knowledge on vocal learning strategies. Here, we analysed changes in fin whal...

Animals use varied acoustic signals that play critical roles in their lives. Understanding the function of these signals may inform about key life history processes relevant for conservation. In the case of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus), that produce different call types associated with different behaviours, several hypotheses have emerged reg...

Source level is one factor that determines the effectiveness of animal signal transmissions and their acoustic communication active space. Ocean-bottom seismometers (OBS) are platforms of opportunity to monitor marine species because they record data as pressure fluctuations in the water using a hydrophone and/or as particle velocity of the seabed...

The Azores archipelago is an important cetacean habitat spot, registering a very relevant resident and migratory population. Due to its geographical position, it also represents an important commercial crossroad between America and Europe. Vessels represent the major source of underwater noise which may affect cetaceans. Since 2017 acoustic measure...

Dolphins living in the oceanic waters off the Azores consistently use seamounts to forage at night. These dolphins rely entirely on broadband echolocation clicks and burst-pulsed signals to sense their environment, detect and capture prey. Underwater noise from vessels can interfere with the ability of these dolphins to forage successfully. We meas...

Shipping noise overlaps with baleen whales’ vocalizing frequencies and in high levels, may disrupt their behaviour and affect their communication ranges via masking. In this study, we measured underwater noise levels and quantified time with shipping noise at a single location southeast of the Faial-Pico Islands channel, in the Azores Archipelago,...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

The identification of important areas during the annual life cycle of migratory animals, such as baleen whales, is vital for their conservation. In boreal springtime, fin and blue whales feed in the Azores on their way to northern latitudes while sei whales migrate through the archipelago with only occasional feeding. Little is known about their au...

The importance of seamounts as foraging hotspots for cetaceans depends on interactions between ocean flow and topographical features that concentrate prey. However, the oceanographic processes driving these aggregations are still unclear. Here, we analyzed two months of passive acoustic recordings from two remote seamounts in the Northeast Atlantic...

Assessment of underwater noise is of particular interest given the increase in noise-generating human activities and the potential negative effects on marine mammals which depend on sound for many vital processes. The Azores archipelago is an important migratory and feeding habitat for blue (Balaenoptera musculus), fin (Balaenoptera physalus) and s...

Results are presented from the first systematic visual and acoustic line-transect survey for harbour porpoises in the Thracian Sea, northern Aegean Sea. During the vessel survey, undertaken in summer 2013, porpoises were observed on nine occasions and detected acoustically 16 times, with a total of 21 distinct encounters recorded. Harbour porpoises...

Sei whale calls have been documented on very few occasions and never in the Azores Archipelago, an area transited by this species during their migration to northern latitudes in spring and early summer. Using a combination of video range tracking (VRT) and acoustic methods, vocalizations are described from an encounter with two sei whales in April...

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene PIF1 encodes a conserved eukaryotic DNA helicase required for both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA integrity. Our previous work revealed that a pif1Δ strain is tolerant to zinc overload. In the present study we demonstrate that this effect is independent of the Pif1 helicase activity and is only observed when the pro...

Two metallothionein (MT) isoforms have been identified in the model nematode Caenorhabditis elegans: CeMT1 and CeMT2, comprising two polypeptides that are 75 and 63 residues in length, respectively. Both isoforms encompass a conserved cysteine pattern (19 in CeMT1 and 18 in CeMT2) and, most significantly, as a result of their coordinative potential...