Publications by authors named "M J Feio"
The extent of alien taxa impacts on river ecosystem health is unclear, but their frequency continues to rise. We investigated 1) the prevalence of including alien taxa in common bioindicators used in river bioassessment, 2) the effect of alien taxa on the richness and abundance of natives, and 3) whether including alien taxa in bioassessment tools increased their sensitivity to river degradation. In the 17 countries analyzed fish represented the greatest number of alien species (1726), followed by macrophytes (925), macroinvertebrates (556), and diatoms (7).
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- Protected areas are crucial for biological conservation, but their effectiveness in preserving freshwater ecosystems is not well understood and studies have shown mixed results.
- Analysis of data from 174 Portuguese streams revealed that while freshwater ecosystems aren't prioritized in terrestrial protected areas, these areas still support better biological quality and higher abundance of threatened species.
- The lack of significant differences in diatom community diversity between protected and unprotected sites highlights the necessity for dedicated freshwater protected areas to enhance the preservation of these ecosystems.
Article Synopsis
- * Researchers created the TREAM dataset, which includes extensive data from 1,816 river and stream sites across Europe, covering a span of over 50 years and involving millions of macroinvertebrate samples.
- * This dataset will help scientists analyze factors affecting macroinvertebrate populations and evaluate the effectiveness of water quality improvements following European environmental legislation since the 1980s.
This study aimed to survey the practice of palliative sedation in Portugal, where data on this subject were lacking. This was a prospective multicentric study that included all patients admitted to each team that agreed to participate. Patients were followed until death, discharge, or after 3 months of follow-up.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHumans impact terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems, yet many broad-scale studies have found no systematic, negative biodiversity changes (for example, decreasing abundance or taxon richness). Here we show that mixed biodiversity responses may arise because community metrics show variable responses to anthropogenic impacts across broad spatial scales. We first quantified temporal trends in anthropogenic impacts for 1,365 riverine invertebrate communities from 23 European countries, based on similarity to least-impacted reference communities.
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