Patrícia Madeira

• PhD Researcher
• University of the Azores

A new attachment trace belonging to the ichnogenus Centrichnus has been recognized on bivalve shells in a Pliocene coquina of the Pedra-que-pica section in Santa Maria Island (Azores Archipelago). The new ichnospecies Centrichnus dentatus isp. nov. is characterized by an elliptical outline, bounded by a groove and/or a series of pits, and by having...

The north coast of Sal Island in the Cabo Verde Archipelago is affected by wave swell generated by persistent northeast trade winds, seasonal winter swell from the western Atlantic, and rare tropical storms. An unroofed sea cave between Ponta Norte and Ponta Palhona exposes a natural amphitheater enclosed by the 6-m cliff face of a Pleistocene mari...

Taxonomic impediment and taxonomic gap are two major problems that challenge the advancement of biological and palaeontological sciences such as (palaeo)ecology and (palaeo)biogeography. In an effort to overcome these difficulties, the Last Interglacial fossiliferous deposits from the Island of Santa Maria (Azores Archipelago, Portugal) have been i...

Volcanic oceanic islands are some of the Earth’s most geologically and ecologically dynamic habitats, where continuous volcanic activity and erosion lead to the formation of habitats that drastically change throughout their ontogeny. Shallow-water sandy habitats, specifically, repetitively disappeared and regenerated due to seasonal oceanographic a...

O trabalho efetuado para o presente relatório envolveu o estudo de populações de Phorcus sauciatus nas ilhas do Pico e da Graciosa. A metodologia utilizada cumpriu os princípios do método de captura-marcação-recaptura com a seguinte ordem de procedimentos: em condições de baixa-mar propícia (sempre com altura menor ou igual a 0,4 m e entre as 07:00...

This work was done on 1996 and 1997, and presents an extremely valuable baseline to compare the recent and future changes on the insular shallow habitats of the Azorean islands. We examined the structure of the molluscan communities of the macroalgae Halopteris scoparia in São Miguel Island (Azores, Portugal). This island was chosen because it is t...

Solen marginatus Pulteney, 1799 was reported from São Miguel Island (Azores Archipelago, central North Atlantic) by Drouet in 1858, but the occurrence of this species in the archipelago was questioned by authors. We herein report a novel population from Terceira Island, located in the central island group of the Azores Archipelago. This new record...

In a recent review article, Lima & Meneses (2023, Geoconservation Research, 6 (1): 114-127) reported on the Azores Geopark, introducing a new geosite for São Miguel Island. We here express our concerns regarding the data presented in this review article. In our commentary, we focus mainly on the use of out-of-date bibliographic sources and inaccura...

O turismo subaquático em Santa Maria é uma das vertentes do turismo de Natureza sustentável com maior sucesso nesta ilha do Arquipélago dos Açores. Lugares como a “Baixa do Ambrósio” e as suas jamantas (entre outros grandes pelágicos), a “Pedrinha” e os peixes e grandes “leques” bivalves da espécie Pinna rudis (Linnaeus, 1758) que aí se avistam, ou...

CIBIO-Açores/ InBIO/ BIOPOLIS Para quem, como os autores deste texto, trabalha em ilhas oceânicas e tenta decifrar os processos e padrões evolutivos que aqui decorrem atualmente, bem como os que decor-reram ao longo do tempo geológico, assume particular relevo o conhecimento que é ne-cessário ter acerca da ontogenia de cada ilha, ou seja, da histór...

ÁVILA S.P., R.S. RAMALHO, C.M. DA SILVA, M.E. JOHNSON, A. UCHMAN, B. BERNING, R. QUARTAU, P. MADEIRA, C.S. MELO, A.C. REBELO, L. BAPTISTA, S. ARRUDA, E. GONZÁLEZ, M.W. RASSER, A. HIPÓLITO, R. CORDEIRO, R. MEIRELES, V. RAPOSO, J. POMBO, R. CÂMARA, M.X. KIRBY, J. TITSCHACK, J.M. HABERMANN, R. VULLO, A. KROH, J.H. LIPPS, M. CACHÃO & J. MADEIRA, 2022....

It was with much interest that we read the comment made by Meco et al. (2022), regarding our work on "Range expansion of tropical shallow-water marine molluscs in the NE Atlantic during the last interglacial (MIS 5e): Causes, consequences and utility of ecostratigraphic indicators for the Macaronesian archipelagos". We welcome the discussion genera...

METEOR Cruise M150 BIODIAZ provided material from sublittoral down to deep-sea stations to incorporate innovative aspects into the study of seamount and island productivity and their potential role for the establishment of benthic assemblages comprising all size classes (George et al. 2021). The aim was to get a baseline on the diversity, faunal co...

Controlled by ecological and physical factors, marine species distribution may vary due to global climatic changes that result from range expansion or contraction (the latter caused by local disappearances, i.e., extirpations). Spanning from 13° to 39°N, the Macaronesian region encompasses five archipelagos located within warm-temperate to tropical...

Pliocene body fossils from Santa Maria Island, Azores, have been studied for decades, but only more recently have ichnofossils received their due attention. Calcareous Pliocene deposits from the Baía de Nossa Senhora section contain numerous, diverse, well-preserved natural casts of invertebrate borings. The study of this type of fossils adds to kn...

The presence of crustacean decapods in the Pliocene and Pleistocene (MIS 5e) fossil record of Santa Maria Island (Azores Archipelago) is herein reviewed. Our study raises the number of fossil crabs from this island from one species to ten taxa (3 for the Pliocene and 7 for the Last Interglacial). Five out of these ten taxa are reported for the firs...

The marine topshell Phorcus sauciatus is currently found along the temperatesubtropical shores of the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. Although present in the Iberian Peninsula, Madeira and Canaries for centuries, P. sauciatus has only recently reached another oceanic volcanic archipelago in the region. In 2013, a small population was recorded for the fir...

The worldwide study of the geological record of the Last Interglacial is key to reconstruct the climatic and oceanographic conditions during that time interval. Here we present preliminary results of a comprehensive field analysis of one of the most extensive and least studied Quaternary fossiliferous sequences in Cabo Verde attributed to the Last...

Fossil fishes are among the rarest in volcanic oceanic islands, their presence providing invaluable data for the understanding of more general (palaeo)biogeographical patterns and processes. Santa Maria Island (Azores Archipelago) is renowned for its palaeontological heritage, with representatives of several phyla, including the Chordata. Herein, w...

The Azores, Madeira, Selvagens, Canary Islands and Cabo Verde are commonly united under the term "Macaronesia". This study investigates the coherency and validity of Macaronesia as a biogeographic unit using six marine groups with very different dispersal abilities: coastal fishes, echinoderms, gastropod molluscs, brachyuran decapod crustaceans, po...

The Azores, Madeira, Selvagens, Canary Islands and Cabo Verde are commonly united under the term “Macaronesia”. This study investigates the coherency and validity of Macaronesia as a biogeographic unit using six marine groups with very different dispersal abilities: coastal fishes, echinoderms, gastropod molluscs, brachyuran decapod crustaceans, po...

In more than 150 years of research in the waters surrounding the Azores, several publications on the fauna of echinoderms of the archipelago have been produced, in the form of papers, notes, reports, reviews, and monographs. This work attempts to summarize the present knowledge on this marine group in the Azorean exclusive economic zone (i.e., wate...

In more than 150 years of research in the waters surrounding the Azores, several publications on the fauna of echinoderms of the archipelago have been produced, in the form of papers, notes, reports, reviews, and monographs. This work attempts to summarize the present knowledge on this marine group in the Azorean exclusive economic zone (i.e., wate...

Cruise report cruise No. M150

The bowl-shaped trace fossil Piscichnus waitemata Gregory 1991 appears in Pliocene sandstones from Santa Maria Island (Azores Archipelago), extensively excavated during a stage of island evolution when the volcanic edifice was a guyot (flat-topped seamount) isolated in the NE Atlantic. The host sediments were deposited at depths from the intertidal...

A seabed sediment-sampling survey conducted on the Pico insular shelf found abundant rhodoliths between −64 and −73 m off the south coast of the island. These were small and mainly ellipsoidal in shape with a maximum diameter of 3.75 cm. Granules and small pebbles of eroded basalt were also a typical component of these samples. Thin algal crusts we...

Historically, the harvest and consumption of sea cucumbers have been largely restricted to Asian countries. Recently, however, the western world has witnessed a rapid growth of holothurian related industries and Holothuria mammata Grube, 1840 and H. sanctori Delle Chiaje, 1823 are now being commercially harvested in European and North African count...

Past climate changes provide important clues for advancement of studies on current global change biology. We have tested large-scale biogeographic patterns through four marine groups from twelve Atlantic Ocean archipelagos and searched for patterns between species richness/endemism and littoral area, age, isolation, latitude and mean annual sea-sur...

Supplementary files from Marine Pollution Bulletin, 126: 101-112, Global change impacts on large-scale biogeographic patterns of marine organisms on Atlantic oceanic islands, by ÁVILA, S.P., R. CORDEIRO, P. MADEIRA, L. SILVA, A. MEDEIROS, A.C. REBELO, C. MELO, A.I. NETO, R. HAROUN, A. MONTEIRO, K. RIJSDIJK & M.E. JOHNSON (2018).

The first occurrence of the Mediterranean fissiparous asteroid Sclerasterias richardi (Perrier in Milne-Edwards, 1882) is reported from the Azores based upon dredged material off the south coast of São Miguel Island, at 135 m depth. This record represents a considerable expansion of the species’ geographic range, otherwise reported with certainty o...

The application of geoconservation concepts and methodologies to the entire Azores archipelago led to the implementation of the Geopark Azores, recognized as such by the European and Global Geoparks Network. The current work re-evaluates and stresses the scientific and touristic value of the palaeontological sites of Santa Maria Island. Two new geo...

Fossil remains of Cetacea are known globally from nearshore marine sediments along continental coastlines, but they are poorly known from volcanic oceanic island archipelagos. Here we report Pleistocene fossil cetacean material from late Neogene and Quaternary age outcrops on the Santa Maria Island of the Azores island archipelago in the North Atla...

Massive fossil shell accumulations require particular conditions to be formed and may provide valuable insights into the sedimentary environments favouring such concentrations. Shallow-water shell beds appear to be particularly rare on reefless volcanic oceanic islands on account of narrow, steep and highly-energetic insular shelves where the poten...

Massive fossil shell accumulations require particular conditions to be formed and may provide valuable insights into the sedimentary environments favouring such concentrations. Shallow-water shell beds appear to be particularly rare on reefless volcanic oceanic islands on account of narrow, steep and highly-energetic insular shelves where the poten...

In the Azores, a remote archipelago of nine volcanic oceanic islands located in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean, the most striking differences in assemblage composition in relation to mainland European Atlantic shores are the absences of topshells, Mytilus species and the predator Nucella lapillus in the intertidal zone (Hawkins et al., 1990, 2000;...

The privileged location of Santa Maria Island (Azores archipelago) in the middle of the North Atlantic makes the fossiliferous outcrops on this island of utmost importance to gain a better understanding of how coeval living communities relate to the broader evolutionary and biogeographic history of the Atlantic basin during the late Neogene and the...

The distribution of species is expressed by their occurrence in local faunal lists often compiled by non-taxonomists. In the case of rare or cryptic species, this can pose a severe limitation on the validity and thus the application of the resulting biodiversity data. Here, we show an example of a shallow-water echinoid to illustrate problematic di...

In the relatively young archipelago of the Azores, fossiliferous deposits are restricted to the oldest island (Santa Maria), mainly from late Miocene–early Pliocene deposits, and a few from the Pleistocene. echinoid material collected from these deposits comprises mainly disarticulated skeletal material (primary spines and coronal fragments) and a...

In the Açores, the most important, ecologically significant and endangered intertidal habitats, not just here but worldwide, are lagoons and marshes. In the Açorean Archipelago, the largest marsh used to occur between Paúl and Ponta das Contendas at Praia da Vitória on the island of Terceira. The eminent Açorean and Terceiran scientist, Colonel Jos...

Prefácio O trabalho que agora se apresenta de Sérgio Ávila e colaboradores é mais um precioso contributo para a divulgação científica que emerge de trabalho de investigação académica da Universidade dos Açores. É um trabalho que procura conciliar um rigor e uma descrição exaustiva e profusamente ilustrada dos elementos factuais paleontológicos e ge...

Santa Maria is the oldest island of the Azores archipelago and the only one that possesses late-Miocene early-Pliocene and Pleistocene fossils. Two Pleistocene outcrops Lagoinhas and Prainha, from the Marine Isotopic Substage 5.5 (MIS 5.5) are known from Santa Maria Island. We studied the palaeoecology of the Lagoinhas fossil assemblages and we als...

A list of the molluscan species dredged during the 3 rd International Workshop of Malacology and Marine Biology is presented. Positive identification has not been possible for a number of taxa. However, almost all species are illustrated so as to provide a practi-cal guide to the species which may occur as beach drift and others which naturally ran...

The Pleistocene (Eemian) outcrops of Lagoinhas and Prainha, located at Santa Maria Island (Azores), were investigated and their fossil mollusc content reported. These studies revealed that the last glaciation affected two groups of molluscs: the ‘warm-guest’ gastropods with West African or Caribbean affinities (e.g. Conus spp., Cantharus variegatus...

The influence of the Last Glaciation on the shallow-water marine malacofauna of the Azores Islands is reviewed. We test, for this fauna, the 'Pleistocene temperature theory' of J.C. Briggs, whic hypothesizes that a (supposed) lack of endemism in the older (Azorean endemic) fauna resulted from extinctions caused by a severe drop in sea surface tempe...

Aim The influence of the last glaciation on the shallow-water marine malacofauna of the Azores Islands is reviewed. We test, for this fauna, the ‘Pleistocene temperature theory’ of J.C. Briggs, which hypothesizes that a (supposed) lack of endemics in the older (Azorean endemic) fauna resulted from extinctions caused by a severe drop in sea surface...

The cypraeid gastropod Luria lurida (Linnaeus, 1758) is reported for the first time from Pleistocene deposits at the Prainha site, on the island of Santa Maria, Azores archipelago.

The cypraeid gastropod Luria lurida (Linnaeus, 1758) is reported for the first time from Pleistocene deposits at the Prainha site, on the island of Santa Maria, Azores archipelago.

In the Azores, Santa Maria is the only island with a sedimentary cover in a nine island volcanic system. This southeast most island of the archipelago has a rich fossil record, dated to the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene and to the Pleistocene. Palaeontological investigations on the island started in the late nine-teen century. Nevertheless, through t...

The Azores Environment and Sea Agency through its Regional Department of Land Management and Water Resources, together with the Autonomous Government of The Canary Islands and the Regional Cabinet of Transport and Social Equipment of the Autonomous Government of Madeira carry on the project “Sustainable Management of the Social, Economic and Ecolog...

In the Azores, Santa Maria is the only island with a sedimentary cover in a nine island volcanic system. This southeast most island of the archipelago has a rich fossil record, dated to the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene and to the Pleistocene. Palaeontological investigations on the island started in the late nineteen century. Nevertheless, through th...