Vanessa Mendonça

University of Lisbon | UL · MARE-Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre

Tropical gastropods have lower acclimation capacity and thermal safety margins Tropical gastropods are more vulnerable to heat waves and chronic warming CTMax of some tropical species decreased after exposure to higher temperatures

Loss of species can unleash a cascade of secondary extinctions that cause dramatic changes in the structure and dynamics of food webs. The consequences for the food web depend on the traits of the species that are lost; thus, it is crucial to identify species’ traits associated with secondary extinction risk. Another important issue is to determine...

Tide pools are rapidly warming environments with low thermal inertia, where organisms are exposed to potentially stressful conditions. This way, tide pools will be among the first and hardest hit environments by climate warming. Studies of thermal stress in situ are rare, but important so that current thermal stress in the wild can be confirmed and...

Global warming threatens community stability and biodiversity around the globe. Knowledge of the mechanisms underlying the responses to rising temperatures depends heavily on generic food-web models that do not account for changes in network structure along latitudes and temperature gradients. Using 124 marine rock-pool food webs sampled across fou...

The ability of intertidal organisms to maintain their performance via molecular and physiological adjustments under low tide, seasonal fluctuations and extreme events ultimately determines population viability. Analyzing this capacity in the wild is extremely relevant since intertidal communities are under increased climate variability owing to glo...

Climate change affects marine communities through its impact on the physiological performance of organisms and recent evidence shows that tropical organisms are more vulnerable to warming than temperate organisms. However, we do not know what this means for trophic interactions that occur among species within ecological communities. Are tropical fo...

Current climate warming trends call for continuous biomonitoring of thermal stress in situ in tropical areas. The categorization and mapping of vulnerable species and prioritization of conservation actions are essential for the maintenance of functional biodiversity in these habitats. However, a lack of integrative approaches addressing thermal com...

Predator–prey interactions in natural ecosystems generate complex food webs that have a simple universal body-size architecture where predators are systematically larger than their prey. Food-web theory shows that the highest predator–prey body-mass ratios found in natural food webs may be especially important because they create weak interactions...

Climate change, particularly ocean warming, is thought to benefit the spread of invasive species due to their increased tolerance to temperature fluctuations as compared to native species. The physiological tolerance of invasive species as a potential mechanism driving invasion success is therefore a subject that merits further study. Specifically,...

The threat of global warming has driven recent efforts of estimating upper thermal limits of ectothermic species all over the world. The investigation of thermal limits is crucial for the understanding of climate change ecology, since it provides insight into how climate will shape future species distributions. This work estimated the Critical Ther...

Scientists are currently faced with the challenge of assessing the effects of anthropogenic stressors on aquatic ecosystems. Cellular stress response (CSR) biomarkers are ubiquitous and phylogenetically conserved among metazoans and have been successfully applied in environmental monitoring but they can also vary according to natural biotic and abi...

Climate change models predict an important decrease in precipitation in some parts of the world, which will lead to a decrease in river plume magnitude. River plumes can have an important enhancing effect on coastal secondary production and sustain important fisheries. Studies using stable isotopes have been proven successful in characterizing the...

Climate change, particularly ocean warming, is thought to benefit the spread of invasive species due to their increased tolerance to temperature fluctuations when compared to native species. However, the physiological tolerance of invasive species as a potential mechanism driving invasion success has been overlooked. Here, we experimentally evaluat...

Knowledge on food web structure, trophic links and energy pathways is essential for the understanding of complex and highly biodiverse tropical ecosystems. Emerging issues related to global change and species invasions call for an urgent advance on this topic. Isotopic analyses were applied to the tropical intertidal rocky shores of Southeastern Br...

Currently, the effects of global warming on marine organisms are widely recognized by the scientific community. However, studies that relate the increase in ocean temperature with other stress factors are still scarce. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of water temperature increase on the parasite Anilocra frontalis, the parasi...

Understanding the fundamental laws that govern complex food web networks over large ecosystems presents high costs and oftentimes unsurmountable logistical challenges. This way, it is crucial to find smaller systems that can be used as proxy food webs. Intertidal rock pool environments harbour particularly high biodiversity over small areas. This s...

References used to establish feeding links between the taxa. (DOCX)

List of all taxa identified in the pools. (DOCX)

References used for the identification of the organisms. (DOCX)

General characteristics of the pools surveyed. (DOCX)

According to climate science, ocean warming is one of the current and future greatest threats to coastal ecosystems. Projection scenarios for the end of this century show that tropical intertidal ecosystems are particularly at risk. In this study we optimized and tested a holistic method for bio-monitoring present and projected thermal pressure in...

According to climate science, ocean warming is one of the current and future greatest threats to coastal ecosystems. Projection scenarios for the end of this century show that tropical intertidal ecosystems are particularly at risk. In this study we optimized and tested a holistic method for bio-monitoring present and projected thermal pressure in...

Introduction: Scientists are currently faced with the challenge of assessing the effects of anthropogenic stressors on aquatic ecosystems. Cellular stress response (CSR) biomarkers are ubiquitous and phylogenetically conserved among metazoans [1 Kultz D. Evolution of the cellular stress proteome: from monophyletic origin to ubiquitous function. J E...

Presentation on VII Iberian Congress of Ichthyology organized by the Iberian Society of Ichthyology (SIBIC), which took place in Faro, Portugal in June of 2018.

Tropical and subtropical reef associated organisms have been recognized as being among the most vulnerable organisms towards environmental change, namely due to extreme climatic events associated with global warming. The study of their physiological responses under environmental stress seems to be a key issue for assessing ecosystem health in these...

Animal physiology and ecology are affected by increasing environmental temperatures, and this is particularly relevant in the tropics, where organisms are already living on the warm edge of their thermal windows. Here, we present data on sub-lethal effects of temperature (using molecular biomarkers), thermal tolerance, warming safety margins and bo...

Mortality of fish has been reported in tide pools during warm days. That means that tide pools are potential ecological traps for coastal organisms, which happen when environmental changes cause maladaptive habitat selection. Heat-waves are predicted to increase in intensity, duration and frequency, making it relevant to investigate the role of tid...

The rapid expansion of the invasive coral, Tubastraea spp., along the coast of Brazil is considered a serious problem with major ecological and socio-economic impacts. However, studies on the structure and dynamics of the food web associated to this coral, are still missing. At the basis of this coral another non-indigenous species is very often fo...

A ecologia e fisiologia animal são influenciadas pela temperatura oceânica, com particular relevância em zonas tropicais, onde os organismos vivem no limiar superior da sua janela térmica. Neste estudo investigámos os efeitos subletais do aumento da temperatura da água do mar em vertebrados (peixes) e invertebrados (crustáceos e gastrópodes) de zon...

Synergistic effects of cymotoid parasitization and temperature rising due to global change in the Pomatoschistus microps - Anilocra frontalis interaction. Parasitized and non-parasitized Pomatoschistus microps were subjected to 22 and 26 ºC. CTMax mortality and stress levels (through the stress biomarkers Superoxid dismutase, Catalase, Glutathione...

Tropical organisms are predicted to be among the most impacted by increasing sea surface temperatures, particularly those from intertidal habitats. In this study, a complete thermal biology assessment was conducted for two widespread tropical Atlantic shallow reef fish: Abudefduf saxatilis (damselfish) and Scartella cristata (blenny), which make ex...

Knowl­edge on base­line val­ues of stress bio­mark­ers in nat­ural con­di­tions is ur­gent due to the need of ref­er­ence val­ues for mon­i­tor­ing pur­poses. Here we as­sessed the cel­lu­lar stress re­sponse of the chi­ton Chaeto­pleura an­gu­lata in situ. Bio­mark­ers com­monly used in en­vi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing (heat shock pro­tein 70 kDa,...

Small intermittent estuaries are a common feature in some parts of the world. They are recognized as important refuge and nursery areas for several marine species. However, their biological dynamics are still poorly known. In fact, the network structure of their food webs remains undescribed. Highly resolved food webs were compiled for 23 small int...

Chitons are very common molluscs on European rocky shores. They are common prey of fish and crabs and often display several colour morphs within a given habitat. Predation is one of the potential mechanisms accounting for chiton colour polymorphism. The colour variation is considered to provide a camouflage protection through a match with the subst...

Temperate species undergo wide variations of abiotic factors according to season, with temperature and photoperiod being two of the main factors that change. Given that several laboratory studies have reported the capacity of intertidal species to trigger the cellular stress response when exposed to challenging environmental conditions, the aim of...

The Sado estuary is subject to multiple sources of impact, however its environmental disturbance level is very heterogeneous. In this study, a pristine embayment within the Sado estuary was studied. This area, known as Caldeira de Tróia, harbours high biodiversity. The aim was to 1) describe the benthic trophic web and to 2) assess its level of ant...

Oxidative stress biomarkers have been widely used in the development of indices of exposure to contaminants. However, temperature is known to also have a significant effect on oxidative stress biomarkers. This way, temperature is a confounding factor that may result in difficulties in the interpretation of oxidative stress biomarkers response patte...

The characterization of food web structure, energy pathways and trophic linkages is essential for the understanding of ecosystem functioning. Isotopic analysis was performed on food web components of the rocky intertidal ecosystem in four sites along the Portuguese west coast. The aim was to 1) determine the general food web structure, 2) estimate...

The characterization of food web structure, energy pathways and trophic linkages is essential for the understanding of ecosystem functioning. Isotopic analysis was performed on food web components of the rocky intertidal ecosystem in four sites along the Portuguese west coast. The aim was to 1) determine the general food web structure, 2) estimate...

Elevated water temperature is generally considered one of the most problematic stressors affecting fish as a result of climate change. Studies from temperate marine animal communities have been crucial in thermal biology research however research on tropical species has been comparatively scarce. In this study we measured the cellular stress respon...

This study presents a new approach to examining European chiton habitat use according to morphological characteristics. Time-search transects were conducted on four Portuguese rocky shores at two shore levels. The chiton species, abundance and individual morphometric features were recorded and related to the substratum dominant epiphytes and surfac...

In habitats where competition for space is a shaping force of animal distribution such as in the intertidal rocky ecosystem, new habitats are readily taken by colonising species. We examined the importance of empty Chthamalus spp. tests as a habitat for the intertidal common periwinkle Melaraphe neritoides on Portuguese rocky shores. The role playe...

Oxidative stress biomarkers have been widely used in the development of ecological indices and in the assessment of exposure of aquatic organisms to contaminants from agricultural, industrial and urban pollution. However, temperature is known to also have a significant effect on oxidative stress biomarkers. This way, temperature is a confounding fa...

The estimation of the trophic level (TL) occupied by organisms in estuarine food webs, based on isotopic analysis, is generally done only for one season or averaged among seasons and sites. This does not allow the observation of possible alterations of TL in time and space. As estuaries are highly dynamic environments, it is plausible that the TLs...