Sea turtles are critical components of marine ecosystems, and their conservation is important for Ocean Governance and Global Planet Health. However, there is limited knowledge of their ecology in the Gulf of Guinea. To fill this knowledge gap, this study presents the first integrative assessment of green and hawksbill turtles in the region, combining nesting surveys over 9 years and telemetry data, to offer insights into these population dynamics, and behaviours, including nesting preferences, morphological and reproductive parameters, diving patterns and inter-nesting core-use areas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChondrichthyans comprise a diverse group of vertebrate species with extraordinary ecological relevance. Yet, multiple members of this evolutionary lineage are associated with significant extinction risk. The sailfin roughshark is a deep-water benthic shark currently listed as vulnerable due to population declines in parts of its range.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe transport of passively dispersed organisms across tropical margins remains poorly understood. Hypotheses of oceanographic transportation potential lack testing with large scale empirical data. To address this gap, we used the seagrass species, Halodule wrightii, which is unique in spanning the entire tropical Atlantic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs the number of introduced species keeps increasing unabatedly, identifying and prioritising current and potential Invasive Alien Species (IAS) has become essential to manage them. Horizon Scanning (HS), defined as an exploration of potential threats, is considered a fundamental component of IAS management. By combining scientific knowledge on taxa with expert opinion, we identified the most relevant aquatic IAS in the Iberian Peninsula, i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDeep-water sharks are among the most vulnerable deep-water taxa because of their extremely conservative life-history strategies (i.e., late maturation, slow growth, and reproductive rates), yet little is known about their biology and ecology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSites with naturally high CO conditions provide unique opportunities to forecast the vulnerability of coastal ecosystems to ocean acidification, by studying the biological responses and potential adaptations to this increased environmental variability. In this study, we investigated the bivalve Ervilia castanea in coastal sandy sediments at reference sites and at volcanic CO seeps off the Azores, where the pH of bottom waters ranged from average oceanic levels of 8.2, along gradients, down to 6.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) is an endangered marine reptile for whom assessing population health requires knowledge of demographic parameters such as individual growth rate. In Cape Verde, as within several populations, adult female loggerhead sea turtles show a size-related behavioral and trophic dichotomy. While smaller females are associated with oceanic habitats, larger females tend to feed in neritic habitats, which is reflected in their physiological condition and in their offspring.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF