Browsing by Author "Sousa, Pedro M."
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- Climate change vulnerability assessment of the main marine commercial fish and invertebrates of PortugalPublication . Bueno-Pardo, Juan; Nobre, Daniela; Monteiro, J. N.; Sousa, Pedro M.; Costa, Eudriano; Baptista, Vânia; Ovelheiro, Andreia; Vieira, Vasco; Chicharo, Luis; Gaspar, Miguel; Erzini, Karim; Kay, Susana; Queiroga, Henrique; Teodosio, Maria; Leitão, FranciscoThis is the first attempt to apply an expert-based ecological vulnerability assessment of the effects of climate change on the main marine resources of Portugal. The vulnerability, exposure, sensitivity, adaptive capacity, and expected directional effects of 74 species of fish and invertebrates of commercial interest is estimated based on criteria related to their life-history and level of conservation or exploitation. This analysis is performed separately for three regions of Portugal and two scenarios of climate change (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). To do that, the fourth assessment report IPCC framework for vulnerability assessments was coupled to the outputs of a physical-biogeochemical model allowing to weight the exposure of the species by the expected variability of the environmental variables in the future. The highest vulnerabilities were found for some migratory and elasmobranch species, although overall vulnerability scores were low probably due to the high adaptive capacity of species from temperate ecosystems. Among regions, the highest average vulnerability was estimated for the species in the Central region while higher vulnerabilities were identified under climate change scenario RCP 8.5 in the three regions, due to higher expected climatic variability. This work establishes the basis for the assessment of the vulnerability of the human activities relying on marine resources in the context of climate change.
- Shifts in estuarine macroinvertebrate communities associated with water quality and climate changePublication . Goulding, Thomas; Sousa, Pedro M.; Silva, Gilda; Medeiros, João Paulo; Carvalho, Frederico; Metelo, Inês; Freitas, Catarina; Lopes, Nuno; Chainho, Paula; Costa, José LinoThe present work aims to identify changes in the macroinvertebrate community of the Tagus estuary (Portugal) due to improvements in water quality and to climate change. Data was collected over a period of 16 years (1998–2014) from different sites located along the estuarine gradient. The AZTI Marine Biotic Index (AMBI) was used to assess the ecological quality status based on benthic invertebrate communities and identify possible variations associated with changes in water quality. The overall distribution of each species was examined to detect possible changes associated with climate, based on species’ affinity for more temperate or subtropical climates. Results demonstrate that there was an overall improvement of AMBI scores during the assessment period. The analysis of the geographical distribution of benthic species seems to indicate that there has been an increase of species which prefer subtropical climates in the shallower waters of the estuary, whereas in the deeper estuarine sections the propensity is for species that prefer temperate climates.