Publications by authors named "Marta M Rufino"

The global biodiversity crisis due to anthropogenic pressures jeopardizes marine ecosystem functioning and services. Community responses to these environmental changes can be assessed through functional diversity, a biodiversity component related to organism-environment interactions, and estimated through biological traits related to organism functions (locomotion, feeding mode, and reproduction). Fish play a key role in marine systems functioning and supply proteins for billions of humans worldwide, yet most of the knowledge is limited to several commercial species and little is known about the intraspecific variability of their functional traits.

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Spatial indicators are used to quantify the state of species and ecosystem status, that is the impacts of climate and anthropogenic changes, as well as to comprehend species ecology. These metrics are thus, determinant to the stakeholder's decisions on the conservation measures to be implemented. A detailed review of the literature (55 papers) showed that 18 spatial indicators were commonly used in marine ecology.

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The commercially fished striped venus clams Chamelea gallina and C. striatula (Bivalvia: Veneridae) are difficult to distinguish by inexperienced observers and the taxonomy of these species is still an issue of discussion. The differences in shape between C.

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