Coupling anchovy eggs and hydrodynamic model as an assessement tool for estuarine ecohydrological management

Nitrate and urban waste water directives have raised the need for a better understanding of coastal systems in European Union. The incorrect application of these directives can lead to important ecological or social penalties. In the paper this problem is addressed to Ria Formosa Coastal Lagoon. Ria Formosa hosts a Natural Park, important ports of the southern Portuguese coast and significant bivalve aquaculture activity. Four major urban waste water treatment plants discharging in the lagoon are considered in this study. Its treatment level must be selected, based on detailed information from a monitoring program and on a good knowledge of the processes determining the fate of the material discharged in the lagoon. In this paper the results of a monitoring program and simulations using a coupled hydrodynamic and water quality / ecological model, MOHID, are used to characterise the system and to understand the processes in Ria Formosa. It is shown that the water residence time in most of the lagoon is quite low, of the order of days, but it can be larger in the upper parts of the channels where land generated water is discharged. The main supply of nutrients to the lagoon comes from the open sea rather than from the urban discharges. For this reason the characteristics and behaviour of the general lagoon contrasts with the behaviour of the upper reaches of the channels where the influence of the waste water treatment plants are high. In this system the bottom mineralization was found to be an important mechanism, and the inclusion of that process in the model was essential to obtain good results.

The extinction of Neanderthals and the emergence of the Upper Paleolithic in Portugal

Este trabalho foi apresentado no âmbito de Provas de Agregação na área de Arqueologia. Estas provas académicas, constituídas por 3 fases, são de carácter público. Para cada fase existe um arguente, sendo as fases, respectivamente, a discussão do currículo do candidato, a análise de um relatório de uma disciplina do ensino universitário e uma lição-síntese, seguida de discussão. Esta última prova consiste numa apresentação de uma hora de um tema à escolha e, como parte constituinte das Provas de Agregação, pode ser pensada de duas formas essencialmente opostas: uma de entre as várias lições do programa da disciplina apresentado no relatório acima mencionado, fazendo por isso a descrição de uma qualquer parte do conteúdo desse mesmo programa; ou, pelo contrário, respeitar o título da prova e fazer-se uma verdadeira lição síntese, de carácter inédito.

Ecologic zonation model of the benthic foraminifera and thecamoebians of Guadiana river estuary and application in paleoenvironmental reconstruction

Tese de doutoramento, Ciências do Mar ( Processos de Ecossistemas Marinhos), Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade do Algarve, 2012