Browsing by Author "Machado, Margarida"
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- Defining the importance of landscape metrics for large branchiopod biodiversity and conservation: the case of the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic IslandsPublication . Sala, Jordi; Gascón, Stéphanie; Cunillera-Montcusí, David; Alonso, Miguel; Amat, Francisco; Cancela Da Fonseca, Luís; Cristo, Margarida; Florencio, Margarita; García-de-Lomas, Juan; Machado, Margarida; Miracle, Maria Rosa; Miró, Alexandre; Pérez-Bote, José Luis; Pretus, Joan Lluís; Prunier, Florent; Ripoll, Javier; Rueda, Juan; Sahuquillo, María; Serrano, Laura; Ventura, Marc; Verdiell-Cubedo, David; Boix, DaniThe deficiency in the distributional data of invertebrate taxa is one of the major impediments acting on the bias towards the low awareness of its conservation status. The present study sets a basic framework to understand the large branchiopods distribution in the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands. Since the extensive surveys performed in the late 1980s, no more studies existed updating the information for the whole studied area. The present study fills the gap, gathering together all available information on large branchiopods distribution since 1995, and analysing the effect of human population density and several landscape characteristics on their distribution, taking into consideration different spatial scales (100 m, 1 km and 10 km). In overall, 28 large branchiopod taxa (17 anostracans, 7 notostracans and 4 spinicaudatans) are known to occur in the area. Approximately 30% of the sites hosted multiple species, with a maximum of 6 species. Significant positive co-occurring species pairs were found clustered together, forming 4 different associations of large branchiopod species. In general, species clustered in the same group showed similar responses to analysed landscape characteristics, usually showing a better fit at higher spatial scales.
- First record of the tadpole shrimp Triops cancriformis (Lamarck,1801) (Crustacea: Branchiopoda: Notostraca) in PortugalPublication . Machado, Margarida; Sousa, Luis Guilherme; Cancela Da Fonseca, Luís; Galioto, Eliana Dinamene; Caramujo, Maria JoséNotostracan crustaceans identified as Triops cancriformis according to the presently accepted morphological criteria were recorded for the first time in Portugal in 2007. All previous records of Triops in Portugal belong to mauritanicus lineage species i.e. T. vicentinus or T. baeticus. A specimen purportedly belonging to T. cancriformis (Carvalho, 1944) has been re-identified by Machado in 2014 as T. baeticus after morphological examination. During 2007, hundreds of individuals of T. cancriformis were observed throughout the rice paddies on the northern margin of Sorraia River (Vale do Sorraia, Coruche). In the last 9 years, monthly checks during the rainy season have failed to record high population abundances and only a few specimens have been observed in the flooded tracks left by trucks and other heavy machinery on the elevated margins of the paddies. The low number of individuals observed in the latter years possibly results from changes of ecological conditions. Thus far, males of T. cancriformis have not been recorded, which may indicate that the observed population is either androdioecious or made of hermaphrodite or parthenogenetic populations. This situation contrasts with the other confirmed populations of this species in the Iberian Peninsula that are gonochoric. Parthenogenetic/hermaphrodite/androdioecious lineages, present in Northern and Central Europe, are considered to have derived from gonochoric Iberian populations in the Pleistocene which makes this finding all the more interesting in evolutionary terms. Has this population resulted from a recent recolonization from non‐Iberian populations? Or has it derived directly from the assumed Iberian Pleistocene refuge? The potentially high dispersal abilities of Triops diapausing cysts and the possibility of hermaphrodite/parthenogenetic reproduction favour the 1st hypothesis of recolonization. Possible sources of individuals are (i) cysts attached to migratory birds arriving possibly from Southern France or Northern Italy and that are regularly seen feeding at these rice fields or ii) cysts unwittingly transported with the rice seeds used in the Vale do Sorraia. Both are in accordance with the assumption that nongonochoric reproductive mode confers a colonization advantage over gonochoric populations, which lack evidence of fast long distance dispersal ability. Future multilocus phylogenetic analysis is expected to clarify the origin of T. cancriformis found in the Sorraia’s rice fields.
- Freshwater large branchiopods in Portugal: an update of their distributionPublication . Machado, Margarida; Cancela Da Fonseca, Luís; Cristo, MargaridaThis study is based largely on 20 years of field and laboratory work, with surveys conducted by the authors and some other researchers. During this period several studies dealing with freshwater large branchiopods (FLB) were carried out, resulting in scientific publications and project reports. The distribution of FLB in Portugal was presented in 2 international scientific meetings, but apart from a first paper by Vianna-Fernandes in 1951 and an update done by ourselves in 1999 concerning the southwest Portugal, no other information has been published. Therefore, this work intends to bring up to date the known distribution of this faunal group in freshwater temporary systems. This is pertinent because of the recent revision of the taxon Triops cancriformis on the basis of genetic analyses. The Portuguese populations were assigned either to the Portuguese endemism T. vicentinus, or to T. baeticus, the more widely spread Iberian species, both belonging to the T. mauritanicus complex. Furthermore, a new species, Tanymastigites lusitanica was found and described in Portugal. More recently, a male free (or, at least, a strongly female-biased) metapopulation of T. cancriformis was discovered in a rice field in the central region of Portugal. Here we present an updated status of FLB species of Portuguese temporary lentic systems and their distribution, plotted on a UTM (10 x 10 km) grid. A total of 505 sites (temporary ponds or assemblages of closely located, not individual temporary pools) have been surveyed (455 by us). In 241 of these (47.7%) at least one species of FLB was found on at least one occasion. Of the 505 sites, only 87 are located north of the Tagus River and of these, at least one species was found in only 17 (19.5%). South of the Tagus River (Alentejo and Algarve), 53.6% of the sites were inhabited by at least one species. This list comprises 7 anostracans, 2 spinicaudatans and 4 notostracans, including 3 species endemic to the Iberian Peninsula and another 3 to Portugal.