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- Probiotic, technological, and health-related characteristics of lactobacilli isolated from breast milkPublication . Pires, Vanessa; Ribeiro, Susana C.; Silva, Sofia; Juraskova, Dominika; Silva, Celia Costa GomesAims: Isolation and characterization of lactobacilli from human milk and determination of their probiotic, technological, and in vitro health promoting properties with a view to their potential use in food fermentation. Methods and Results: Seven lactobacilli isolates were obtained from human milk and identified as Lacticaseibacillus paracasei (isolates BM1–BM6) and Lactobacillus gasseri (BM7). The isolates were examined in vitro for their technological, probiotic, and health-promoting potential. Overall, all isolates showed important technological properties based on the ability to grow in milk whey, a high to moderate acidification capacity and the absence of undesirable enzymatic activities. Lacticaseibacillus gasseri (BM7) differed from the L. paracasei isolates by the absence of several glycosidases and the inability to ferment lactose. Isolates L. paracasei BM3 and BM5 produced exopolysaccharides (EPS) from lactose. All isolates showed probiotic potential as they were tolerant to simulated gastrointestinal conditions, had high cell surface hydrophobicity, had not acquired resistance to relevant antibiotics and had no virulence characteristics. All L. paracasei showed high antimicrobial activity against various pathogenic bacteria and fungi, while L. gasseri showed a narrower spectrum of antimicrobial activity. All isolates showed health-promoting potential in vitro, as evidenced by high cholesterol-lowering activity, high ACE inhibitory activity and marked antioxidant activity.
- Sea turtle (Reptilia, Testudines) diversity and occurrence in the Azores Archipelago (NE Atlantic)Publication . Barcelos, Luis M. D.; Vandeperre, Frederic; Parra, Hugo; Barreiros, João P.BACKGROUND: Six species of marine turtles occur in the Azores Archipelago. The loggerhead, Caretta caretta (Linnaeus, 1758), is by far the most common species and is being constantly monitored and tagged by a joint project between the University of the Azores and the University of Florida since 1989. With the implementation of the tuna fishery observers (for dolphin safe seals), an increment of sea turtle reports has been verified as expected. The leather back turtle, Dermochelys coriacea (Vandelli, 1761) is the second most observed species in the Azores' EEZ, a fact probably also linked to the tuna fishery observation programme. All other species are occasional/vagrant albeit the green turtle, Chelonia mydas (Linnaeus, 1758) is more commonly seen than the others. Historically, sea turtles were occasionally taken for food in specific fishing villages and ports. Since 1986, sea turtles, as well as all marine mammals, are fully protected in the Azores although human-related activities (e.g. plastics, discarded fishing gear) do generate serious injuries and deaths. NEW INFORMATION: In this paper, we update sea turtle species' checklist for the Azores and give detailed geographic coordinates on their known occurrences.
- Nonfatal, Nonpredatory Jaguar Attacks in Brazil : A Case SeriesPublication . Haddad Jr., Vidal; Neto, Manoel Francisco de Campos; Barreiros, João P.The jaguar, Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758), is the biggest felid in the Americas. Its range extends from the southwestern United States to northern Argentina. Herein, we present 5 nonfatal jaguar attacks that occurred in Brazil between March 2010 and November 2021. Most of the cases occurred when the victim encountered a jaguar guarding its food or cubs or devouring prey; none appeared to be the result of predatory behavior.
- Incidental fishing of Epinephelus itajara (Lichtenstein, 1822) : the vulnerability of a critically endangered species of the Brazilian coastPublication . Acácio, Mariel; Lima, Maria Alice Leite; Martins, Valéria Fernanda da Silva; Macêdo Filho, Hildeberto Ferreira de; Lourenço, Igor Hister; Barreiros, João P.; Anjos, Marcelo Rodrigues dosEpinephelus itajara, popularly known as grouper, has a wide distribution and is considered the largest fish in the Atlantic Ocean. Behavioral characteristics allied to overfishing and degradation of marine habitats caused declines in E. itajara populations throughout the entire geographic distribution area. The goliath grouper is currently ranked on the IUCN RedList as Vulnerable in Global Status and Critically Endangered in the Gulf of Mexico. In Brazil, even with a fishing moratorium that has protected it since 2002, the species is categorized as critically endangered in the Red Book of the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade. Taking into account these factors and the information gap on the goliath grouper, this study addresses an account of an occasional “post mortem” encounter with a specimen on the edge of Pajuçara beach, Maceió - Alagoas. It was an adult individual, whose size was estimated at 1.6 m and 70 kg of body mass. This study also presents discussions about the conservation status of the species and the efficiency in the management of marine protected areas, revealing that even with many marine protection areas, incidental captures and port records are still recurrent on the Brazilian coast. This record highlights the need to reinforce inspections, in addition to suggesting that the management of these areas be more efficient, ensuring the reestablishment of grouper populations in the region.
- Pinniped (Carnivora, Phocidae) occurrences in the Azores Archipelago (NE Atlantic)Publication . Barcelos, Luis M. D.; Barreiros, João P.BACKGROUND: The last Pinniped species update was in 2010, as part of the list of the terrestrial and marine biota from the Azores. This list includes a chapter dedicated to marine mammals, based on previously published bibliography. NEW INFORMATION: No new species were added since that list was published. However, there were new occurrences since the last update.
- Influence of Climate Variability and Soil Fertility on the Forage Quality and Productivity in Azorean PasturesPublication . Melo, Catarina D.; Dias, Cristiana S. A. M. Maduro; Wallon, Sophie; Borba, Alfredo Emílio Silveira de; Madruga, João; Borges, Paulo A. V.; Ferreira, Maria Teresa; Elias, Rui B.This work aimed to determine and compare the effect of elevation and season on the productivity and the nutritive value of pastures in the Azores (Terceira Island). Forage was collected and analysed for dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fibre (NDF), acid detergent fibre (ADF), acid detergent lignin (ADL), ether extract (EE), mineral ash (Ash), dry matter digestibility (DMD) and organic matter digestibility (OMD). The net productivity (NP) was higher in the low elevation pasture A (1.80 g m⁻²), lower in pasture B (0.98 g m⁻²) and peaked in the winter in both pastures A (3.57 g m⁻²) and B (2.33 g m⁻²) and during the summer in the high elevation pasture C (2.15 g m⁻²). The soil chemical proprieties varied significantly among the three pastures. The highest soil pH, available P, K, Ca and Mg were recorded in pasture A. Positive correlations were observed between all soil parameters analysed and NP, except for the OM content. The DM, PB and EE changed significantly with elevation, while all nutritive parameters (except CP, EE and Ash) increased significantly along the growth season. Environmental factors influenced the nutritive parameters and productivity, suggesting that climate change might have significant impacts on forage production and quality.
- The comparison of site spider «biodiversity quality» in Portuguese protected areasPublication . Feest, Alan; Cardoso, PedroSpiders at 23 Portuguese protected area sites were sampled (pitfall trapped) over 10-month periods. The data allowed for a “biodiversity quality” assessment consisting of the following indices: Species Richness, Biomass, Simpson Index, Species Conservation Value Index and Population Density. These “biodiversity quality” characteristics were reviewed for relative indication of site spider “biodiversity quality”. Spiders are proposed as a group of organisms that could be used to indicate part of the “biodiversity quality” of a site since they can be sampled in a standardised way and yield biodiversity indices for comparison spatially and temporally. The approach adopted in this paper allows a range of “biodiversity quality” indices to be measured for spiders in Portuguese protected areas which, in turn requires decisions from scientists, managers and politicians on what element or characteristic of biodiversity it is intended to be targeted.
- Determinants of spider species richness in coastal dunes along a gradient of mediterraneityPublication . Carvalho, José Carlos; Cardoso, Pedro; Crespo, Luís C.; Henriques, Sérgio; Carvalho, Rui; Gomes, Pedro1. The Iberian Peninsula is one of the most relevant areas in terms of species richness, rarity and endemism in the Mediterranean Basin. Using spiders as a model, we studied the relative importance of environmental and non-environmental spatial variation along a gradient of mediterraneity on the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula. 2. We performed a spatially explicit analysis to evaluate the contribution of pure environmental and pure spatial effects and their shared influence on spider species richness by variation partitioning and principal coordinates of neighbour matrices (PCNM). We dissect the spatial variation of species richness into additive scale-specific models through PCNM analysis and estimate the relative importance of environmental variables for each model. 3. Variation partitioning revealed that 72.8% of species richness variation could be explained by the environmental (climate and dune stability) and spatial variables. Most of this variation (51.3%) corresponds to the environmental spatially structured component. 4. The influence of environmental variables was scale-dependent. At the broadest scales, the latitudinal-climatic gradient was the dominant factor that influenced spider species richness variation. At the finest scale, stability of the dune system was the most important component. 5. In conclusion, spider species richness patterns were determined mostly by spatially structured environmental variation. More importantly, this study shows that different environmental factors act at multiple scales. Hence, our results reinforce the importance of the incorporation of both local and broad-scale factors when examining species richness patterns.
- Habitats Directive species lists : urgent need of revisionPublication . Cardoso, Pedro1. The European Habitats Directive is the main legislative work regarding Europe’s nature conservation policy. It lists the protected habitats and species in the European Union. The species lists include 122 arthropods. 2. The current lists of arthropods (Annexes II and IV) present, possibly among other, five obvious biases: taxonomic, geographic, range, size and aesthetic biases. Species of selected taxa (Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Odonata and Orthoptera), from Northern or Central Europe, relatively widespread, of a large body size and attractive are favoured over species of other taxa, from southern and Mediterranean Europe, endemic or relatively small or inconspicuous. Such biases are obstacles to the effective protection of the European fauna. 3. Two main strategies should be followed to avoid these problems and therefore increase the effectiveness of conservation policies: (i) the adoption of objective and transparent criteria for the listing of protected species, and (ii) implement regular updates and amendments to the lists based on such criteria.
- Population expansion of the invasive Pomacentridae Chromis limbata (Valenciennes, 1833) in Southern Brazilian coast: long-term monitoring, fundamental niche availability and new recordsPublication . Anderson, Antônio B.; Silva, Jodir Pereira da; Sorvilo, Raquel; Francini, Carlo Leopoldo B.; Floeter, Sergio R.; Barreiros, João P.Human-mediated species invasions are recognized as a leading cause of global biotic homogenization and extinction. Studies on colonization events since early stages, establishment of new populations and range extension are scarce because of their rarity, difficult detection and monitoring. Chromis limbata is a reef-associated and non-migratory marine fish from the family Pomacentridae found in depths ranging between 3 and 45 m. The original distribution of the species encompassed exclusively the eastern Atlantic, including the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands. It is also commonly reported from West Africa between Senegal and Pointe Noire, Congo. In 2008, vagrant individuals of C. limbata were recorded off the east coast of Santa Catarina Island, South Brazil (27° 41' 44″ S, 48° 27' 53″ W). This study evaluated the increasing densities of C. limbata populations in Santa Catarina State shoreline. Two recent expansions, northwards to São Paulo State and southwards to Rio Grande do Sul State, are discussed, and a niche model of maximum entropy (MaxEnt) was performed to evaluate suitable C. limbata habitats. Brazilian populations are established and significantly increasing in most sites where the species has been detected. The distributional boundaries predicted by the model are clearly wider than their known range of occurrence, evidencing environmental suitability in both hemispheres from areas where the species still does not occur. Ecological processes such as competition, predation and specially habitat selectivity may regulate their populations and overall distribution range. A long-term monitoring programme and population genetics studies are necessary for a better understanding of this invasion and its consequences to natural communities.