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Publications (354)
The European sardine (Sardina pilchardus) ranks among the most valuable species of Iberian fisheries, and the accurate tracing of its geographic origin, once landed, is paramount to securing sustainable management of fishing stocks and discouraging fraudulent practices of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The present study investi...
This review is focused on the research, innovation and technological breakthroughs on marine invertebrate collagens and their applications. The findings reveal that research dates back to the 1970s, and after a period of reduced activity, interest in collagens from several marine invertebrate groups was renewed around 2008, likely driven by the inc...
Seahorses (Hippocampus spp.; Family Syngnathidae) are mainly targeted by Traditional Chinese Medicine, curio and ornamental trade, as dried or live specimens. Traceability tools may help fill the gaps on supply chains, securing information on geographic origin and identification of traded specimens. Fin-clipping, a non-lethal and well-established m...
The sustainable utilization of co-products derived from the salmon processing industry is crucial for enhancing the viability and decreasing the environmental footprint of both capture and aquaculture operations. Salmon (Salmo salar) is one of the most consumed fish worldwide and a major species produced in aquaculture. As such, significant quantit...
Bacteria from genus Vibrio continue to be one of the most common threats to aquaculture sustainability. Vibrio spp. have been associated with infectious outbreaks in fish, shrimp, bivalves and even algae farms worldwide. Moreover, several Vibrio spp. are also pathogens that impact human health and are a threat to public health when transferred to c...
The European sardine (Sardina pilchardus) ranks among the most valuable species of Iberian fisheries and the accurate tracing of its geographic origin, once landed, is paramount to secure a sustainable management of fishing stocks and discourage fraudulent practices associated with illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The present stu...
The sustainability of aquaculture production is crucial for the industry’s long-term viability. Diversification of feed ingredients is a key component in achieving this sustainability. Considered a promising alternative to traditional feed ingredients, terrestrial insect meals often lack sufficient n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). This study...
Simple Summary
Marine aquarium keeping is a popular hobby that fuels a global industry that still heavily relies on the sourcing of wild organisms, mostly from tropical coral reefs. The European Union (EU) is one of the largest import markets for marine ornamental fish. Despite being mandatory and already fully digital, the record-keeping of what s...
Diopatra neapolitana Delle Chiaje, 1841 (Annelida, Onuphidae) is one of the most exploited polychaete species in European waters, particularly in Ria de Aveiro, a coastal lagoon in mainland Portugal, where the overexploitation of this resource has led to a generalized decline of local populations. In an attempt to reduce the impact of harvesting, s...
World aquaculture is expected to continue to grow over the next few decades, which amplifies the need for a higher production of sustainable feed ingredients for aquatic animals. Insects are considered good candidates for aquafeed ingredients because of their ability to convert food waste into highly nutritional biomass. However, commercially avail...
Salicornia ramosissima, commonly known as glasswort or sea asparagus, is a halophyte plant cultivated for human consumption that is often referred to as a sea vegetable rich in health-promoting n-3 fatty acids (FAs). Yet, the effect of abiotic conditions, such as salinity and temperature, on the FA profile of S. ramosissima remains largely unknown....
Diopatra neapolitana (Delle Chiaje, 1841) is one of the most exploited polychaete species in European waters, particularly in Ria de Aveiro, a coastal lagoon in mainland Portugal, where the overexploitation of this resource has led to a generalized decline of local populations. In an attempt to reduce the impact of harvesting, several management ac...
The fraudulent mislabelling of seafood geographic origin has been growing due to complex supply chains and growing consumer demand. To address this issue, seafood traceability tools, such as those based on elemental fingerprints (EF) of bivalve shells, have been successfully used to confirm their harvesting location. However, despite the usefulness...
Marine lipids are recognized for their-health promoting features, mainly for being the primary sources of omega-3 fatty acids, and are therefore critical for human nutrition in an age when the global supply for these nutrients is experiencing an unprecedent pressure due to an ever-increasing demand. The seafood industry originates a considerable yi...
Marine lipids are recognized for their health promoting features, mainly for being the primary sources of omega-3 fatty acids, and therefore critical for human nutrition in an age when the global supply for these nutrients is experiencing an unprecedent pressure due to an ever-increasing demand. The seafood industry originates a considerable yield...
Chitin/chitosan and collagen are two of the most important bioactive compounds, with applications in the pharmaceutical, veterinary, nutraceutical, cosmetic, biomaterials, and other industries. When extracted from non-edible parts of fish and shellfish, by-catches, and invasive species, their use contributes to a more sustainable and circular econo...
Chitin/chitosan and collagen are two of the most important bioactive compounds with applications in the pharmaceutical, veterinary, nutraceutical, cosmetic, biomaterials, and other industries. When extracted from fish and shellfish non-edible parts, by-catches, and invasive species, their use contributes to a more sustainable and circular economy....
Transmissible cancers are malignant cell lineages that spread clonally between individuals. Several such cancers, termed bivalve transmissible neoplasia (BTN), induce leukemia-like disease in marine bivalves. This is the case of BTN lineages affecting the common cockle, Cerastoderma edule, which inhabits the Atlantic coasts of Europe and northwest...
Cover featuring transmissible leukemia-like cancer in the marine species Cerastoderma edule and Mya arenaria is characterized by long-term tolerance as well as genomic instability.
See Bruzos et al. and Hart et al. and the accompanying News & Views article by Schönbichler & Bergthaler. Link: https://www.nature.com/natcancer/volumes/4/issues/11
Seafood traceability, needed to regulate food safety, control fisheries, combat fraud, and prevent jeopardizing public health from harvesting in polluted locations, depends heavily on the prediction of the geographic origin of seafood. When the available datasets to study traceability are high-dimensional, standard classic statistical models fail....
Mesoporous silica engineered nanomaterials are of interest to the industry due to their drug-carrier ability. Advances in coating technology include using mesoporous silica nanocontainers (SiNC) loaded with organic molecules as additives in protective coatings. The SiNC loaded with the biocide 4,5-dichloro-2-octyl-4-isothiazolin-3-one (DCOIT), i.e....
Syngnathids (seahorses, pipefishes and seadragons) are an attractive resource for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Despite few scientific studies supporting seahorse nutritional benefits, they are believed to possess medicinal properties that enhance human health. The European short-snout seahorse Hippocampus hippocampus is classified as Data De...
Global projections predict significant increases in ocean temperature and changes in ocean chemistry, including salinity variations by 2100. This has led to a substantial interest in the study of thermal ecophysiology, as temperature is a major factor shaping marine ectotherm communities. However, responses to temperature may be influenced by other...
Fucus vesiculosus is a brown seaweed with applications in the food, pharmaceutic, and cosmetic industries. Among its most valuable bioactive compounds are the pigment fucoxanthin and polysaccharides (e.g., fucoidans). In this study, we profiled the photosynthetic pigments and carbohydrates of F. vesiculosus from six locations along the Ílhavo Chann...
Bleaching events associated with climate change are increasing worldwide, being a major threat to tropical coral reefs. Nonetheless, the indirect impacts promoted by the bleaching of organisms hosting photosynthetic endosymbionts, such as those impacting trophic interactions, have received considerably less attention by the scientific community. Bl...
Over the past few decades, natural-origin polysaccharides have received increasing attention across different fields of application, including biomedicine and biotechnology, because of their specific physicochemical and biological properties that have afforded the fabrication of a plethora of multifunctional devices for healthcare applications. Mor...
Marine heatwaves (MHW) are threatening tropical coral reef ecosystems, leading to mass bleaching events worldwide. The combination of heat stress with high irradiance is known to shape the health and redox status of corals, but research is biased toward scleractinian corals, while much less is known on tropical symbiotic soft corals. Here, we evalu...
Inter-individual variability plays a key role in species resilience. This, however, is difficult to assess in marine invertebrates with complex life cycles due to the inherent difficulty of sampling individuals in oceanic environments throughout their ontogeny. This study monitored the effect of contrasting oceanographic conditions, namely downwell...
In view of a water-energy-food (WEF) nexus strategy, the present work assessed the bioenergy production potential of Halimione portulacoides used for the phytoremediation of nutrient-rich simulated wastewater from saltwater-based integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA). Specimens of this halophyte plant were grown in hydroponics under four diff...
The common octopus, Octopus vulgaris, is one of the most important cephalopod fisheries in the world. In Mediterranean cuisine, the common octopus is perceived as an ingredient highly valued for its palatability and nutritional value (source of omega 3 fatty acids). However, the polar lipids of this species are still poorly understood. The present...
Species from shallow marine environments are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events (heatwaves and extreme rainfall) that can promote abrupt environmental shifts, namely in temperature and salinity (respectively). To assess how these shifts impact species' cellular stress responses (CSR), ditch shrimps Palaemon varians were exposed to a...
Transmissible cancers are malignant cell clones that spread among individuals through transfer of living cancer cells. Several such cancers, collectively known as bivalve transmissible neoplasia (BTN), are known to infect and cause leukaemia in marine bivalve molluscs. This is the case of BTN clones affecting the common cockle, Cerastoderma edule ,...
The Atlantic ditch shrimp Palaemon varians Leach, 1814 is an attractive candidate for caridean shrimp aquaculture production. However, the effects of nutritional stress, in terms of variable food quality and feeding frequency, need to be further elucidated as a viable strategy to improve the production of this species and take advantage of potentia...
The biodiversity of marine and coastal habitats is experiencing unprecedented change. While there are well-known drivers of these changes, such as overexploitation, climate change and pollution, there are also relatively unknown emerging issues that are poorly understood or recognized that have potentially positive or negative impacts on marine and...
Biofouling communities are broadly distributed and there is a growing need to understand, monitor, and prevent their dispersal and colonization. Ascidians are a major group of fouling organisms but have remained poorly studied in this context. Furthermore, the search for improved sustainable practices regarding shipping networks, biofouling managem...
From 1990–2019, a total of 15,442 New Marine Natural Products from Invertebrates (NMNPIs) were reported. The 2010s saw the most prolific decade of biodiscovery, with 5630 NMNPIs recorded. The phyla that contributed most biomolecules were the Porifera (sponges) (47.2%, 2659 NMNPIs) and the Cnidaria (35.3%, 1989 NMNPIs). The prevalence of these two p...
Codium tomentosum is a recently domesticated green macroalga, being currently cultured as an extractive species in integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA). Optimization of light requirements in outdoor systems must be achieved to increase the market value of cultivated algal biomass. The present study addresses the seasonal effects of light int...
Exposure to nutritional stress during early ontogeny can generate latent effects that are carried over to later developmental stages and affect their growth performance. However, the compensatory role played by food quality at such later stages is not well known in invertebrates with bi-phasic life cycles. Here, larvae of the caridean shrimp Palaem...
The replacement of fish meal and fish oil by insect-based ingredients in the formulation of marine aquafeeds can be an important step towards sustainability. To pursue this goal, the modulation of the lipid profile of black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illucens) has received great attention. While its nutritional profile can shift with diet, the ab...
While the use of alien insect species for food and feed can help to alleviate protein shortage and provide for a more sustainable feed production, their invasive potential should be considered since invasive alien species represent one of the five main global threats to biodiversity. In the European Union (EU), eight insect species have already bee...
Ascidians are considered as filter-feeder biofouling pests that negatively affect aquaculture facilities. However, they can also be recognized as a potential co-cultured/extractive species for integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) with potential added value as bioresources. A systematic review aiming to understand the ecological importance of...
In modern aquaculture systems, feed is the main source of the waste being produced, including expired aquafeeds. There is a link between the expiration date of aquafeeds enriched with fish oil for marine fish and the observation of several physical and microbiological changes. Among these, lipid oxidation is worth highlighting, as this process is r...
The timing of metamorphosis has recently been referred as a more suitable proxy to evaluate postlarval quality than size. Indeed, while displaying a larger size at settlement, late settlers that originate from larvae that have delayed metamorphosis commonly display poorer growth performances This delay in metamorphosis is possibly at the expenses o...
Marine microalgae are a multitude of taxonomically diverse unicellular organisms, ranging from diatoms to dinoflagellates and several other well-known groups, that may dwell in the water column, occur in marine sediments, or even associate symbiotically with marine animals.
Chenopodium quinoa is a salt tolerant plant species of high nutritional value with potential to act as an extractive species under marine integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA). This study aimed to assess the growth performance and antioxidant content and activity of C. quinoa cultivated in saline hydroponics under contrasting nitrogen concent...
Halophytes have gradually been introduced in marine integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) systems due to their capacity to bioremediate nutrient-rich marine effluents and their potential use for human consumption due to their content of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (FA). To foster the valorization of halophytes produced using an IMTA frame...
As global temperatures continue to rise due to global change, marine heatwaves are also becoming more frequent and intense, impacting marine biodiversity patterns worldwide. Organisms inhabiting shallow water environments, such as the commercially relevant ditch shrimp Palaemon varians, are expected to be the most affected by rising temperatures. T...
Geographic origin is directly linked to the quality and commercial value of bivalves. The globalization of the seafood trade and the increasing number of fraudulent practices in the bivalves industry has prompted consumers to become increasingly aware on the geographic origin of the seafood they consume. To enhance consumers' confidence and allow a...
Bivalves are some of the most valued and consumed seafood species worldwide. However, these organisms can represent a threat to consumers’ health, particularly the suspension feeder species harvested from contaminated areas (e.g., historical pollution by heavy metals or toxins produced by phytoplankton). The elemental composition of bivalve shells...
While complex lipids of seaweeds are known to display important phytochemical properties, their full potential is yet to be explored. This review summarizes the findings of a systematic survey of scientific publications spanning over the years 2000 to January 2021 retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases to map the state of the art...
Long-term retention of functional chloroplasts in animal cells occurs only in sacoglossan sea slugs. Analysis of molecules related to the maintenance of these organelles can provide valuable information on this trait (kleptoplasty). The goal of our research was to characterize the pigment and fatty acid (FA) composition of the sea slug Elysia crisp...
Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a major threat to marine ecosystems and their living resources. IUU fishing promotes fraudulent mislabeling of seafood, which can pose serious risks to consumers’ health if specimens being traded originate from contaminated areas. The development and optimization of reliable tools to confirm the...
Seaweeds are an important marine resource and are currently used in a wide range of applications, such as food, feed, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, and biomaterials. Seaweeds uptake a multitude of chemical elements from the environment, which can turn them into high-quality food products or pose a threat to human health. Therefore, kn...
Natural reef rocks have been harvested from the wild for decades to supply the marine aquarium trade. These rocks have been used in home aquariums mostly as substrate to safeguard biological filtration, especially for nitrification. Producing artificial rocks can be a sustainable alternative to the harvest of natural reef rocks from the wild, thus...
Planktonic communities are a cornerstone of ocean food webs. Early benthic performance of meroplanktonic organisms is shaped by their life stages in planktonic communities. Fatty acid profiles of marine invertebrates are a good indicator of their nutritional state and allow inferring how dietary regimes experienced during larval pelagic life may dr...
Marine bivalves are among the most traded seafood worldwide. Along with their economic value, they are also an excellent source of proteins, vitamins, minerals, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (FA). The FA profiles of the adductor muscle (AM) of bivalves can be successfully used to trace their geographic origin. This approach is paramount for trace...
Some sea slugs are able to steal functional chloroplasts (kleptoplasts) from their algal food sources, but the role and relevance of photosynthesis to the animal host remain controversial. While some researchers claim that kleptoplasts are slowly digestible ‘snacks’, others advocate that they enhance the overall fitness of sea slugs much more profo...
Polar lipids are the most abundant class of lipids in several marine organisms. Among these, phospholipids (PL) have attracted substantial attention do to their importance as a source of essential fatty acids and because they enable high bioavailability of omega fatty acids than triglycerides. While the Northern shrimp Pandalus borealis is one of t...
The present study aimed to contrast the fatty acid (FA) profile of ascidians (Ascidiacea) and seaweeds (sea lettuce, Ulva spp. and bladderwrack, Fucus sp.) occurring in a coastal lagoon with versus without the influence of organic-rich effluents from fish farming activities. Our results revealed that ascidians and seaweeds from these contrasting en...
Grateloupia turuturu Yamada, 1941, is a red seaweed widely used for food in Japan and Korea which was recorded on the Atlantic Coast of Europe about twenty years ago. This seaweed presents eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and other polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in its lipid fraction, a feature that sparked the interest on its potential application...
Berghia stephanieae is a stenophagous sea slug that preys upon glass anemones, such as Exaiptasia diaphana. Glass anemones host photosynthetic dinoflagellate endosymbionts that sea slugs ingest when consuming E. diaphana. However, the prevalence of these photosynthetic dinoflagellate endosymbionts in sea slugs appears to be short-lived, particularl...
Consumers today demand healthier and more sustainable seafood products that are tasty and convenient. Plant-based foods have been particularly sought for and the development of novel products in this category is expanding. Halophytes are emerging as a new category of marine vegetables with distinct organoleptic characteristics (e.g. salty) and func...
Macrobrachium pantanalense is a recently described endemic shrimp from Pantanal. The species completes its life cycle in freshwater and is used as an ornamental species for freshwater aquaria, as well as a model organism in risk assessment trials of anthropic impacts. However, all risk assessment trials performed to date have used wild specimens. A...
Interest on jellyfish research has significantly increased over the last two decades, mostly driven by the potential benefits of their high‐end uses. Recent efforts have been put forward towards the commercial use of scyphozoan jellyfish, although the pipeline leading to their full exploitation is still at an early stage of development. Indeed, fur...
Biofouling prevention is one of the biggest challenges faced by the maritime industry, but antifouling agents commonly impact marine ecosystems. Advances in antifouling technology include the use of nanomaterials. Herein we test an antifouling nano-additive based on the encapsulation of the biocide 4,5-dichloro-2-octyl-4-isothiazolin-3-one (DCOIT)...
Accurate species identification often relies on public repositories to compare the barcode sequences of the investigated individual(s) with taxonomically assigned sequences. However, the accuracy of identifications in public repositories is often questionable, and the names originally given are rarely updated. For instance, species of the Sea Lettu...
Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) cage farming has traditionally been located at higher latitudes where cold seawater temperatures favor this practice. However, these regions can be impacted by ocean warming and heat waves that push seawater temperature beyond the thermo-tolerance limits of this species. As more mass mortality events are reported every...