RCAAP Repository

An increasing number of species are facing unprecedented levels of threat to their long-term survival due to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change. Key opportunities for science to inform wildlife management are linked to increasing our understanding of how changes in climatic conditions will impact species, as well as whether, and how, managers may facilitate species' ability to adapt to change. However, information on species' climate change vulnerability and the effectiveness of potential conservation actions are not yet strategically collected or collated; this disconnect between threat level, ecological research and conservation practice is reducing the opportunities to guide decision-making, ultimately hindering conservation outcomes. To demonstrate this point, we explore how existing knowledge can be brought together in a pressure-state-response framework that connects climate change ecology, conservation evidence assessments and management. Seabirds in Western Europe are used as a case study, as they are well-researched and vulnerable to climate change. Using a combination of literature reviews and surveys, we identify the main threats posed to seabirds in the region by climate change, as well as existing conservation actions that could be applied to lessen the impacts of each of these threats. Our results show that 29% of the types of actions considered for reducing the impacts of climate change on seabirds are either associated with conflicting evidence or lack sufficient information to make robust conclusions about their effectiveness: actions aiming at restoring or creating habitat, encouraging relocation, treating or preventing disease, and reducing inter-species competition all have limited or mixed evidence to support their use. Moreover, several threats identified by conservation practitioners as being of high priority to address, such as changes in prey abundance and eutrophication, have few or no viable identified actions to reduce their impact on seabirds. Synthesis and applications. We suggest that existing knowledge on species vulnerability to climate change and evidence of conservation action effectiveness should be more commonly brought together in tailored pressure-state-response frameworks. Such an approach provides an easily transferable platform for identifying missing information and areas where connections between research and management need to be tightened to improve conservation outcomes.

Unisexual bryophytes provide excellent models to study the mechanisms that regulate the frequency of sexual versus asexual reproduction in plants, and their ecological and evolutionary implications. Here, we determined sex expression, phenotypic sex ratio, and individual shoot traits in 242 populations of the cosmopolitan moss Pseudoscleropodium purum spanning its whole distributional range. We tested whether niche differentiation, sex-specific differences in shoot size, and biogeographical history explained the spatial variation of reproductive traits. We observed high levels of sex expression and predominantly female-biased populations, although both traits showed high intraspecific variation among populations. Sex expression and sex ratio were partly explained by current macroscale environmental variation, with male shoots being less frequent at the higher end of the environmental gradients defined by the current distribution of the species. Female bias in population sex ratio was significantly lower in areas recolonized after the last glacial maximum (recent populations) than in glacial refugia (long-term persistent populations). We demonstrated that reproductive trait variation in perennial unisexual mosses is partially driven by macroscale and historical environmental variation. Based on our results, we hypothesize that sexual dimorphism in environmental tolerance and vegetative growth contribute to sex ratio bias over time, constraining the chances of sexual reproduction, especially in long-term persistent populations. Further studies combining genetic analyses and population monitoring should improve our understanding of the implications of the intraspecific variation in the frequency of sexual versus asexual reproduction in bryophyte population fitness and eco-evolutionary dynamics.

No summary/description provided

Silicon (Si) is a “quasi-essential” element, associated to stresses/limitations alleviation in crops. However, stressful situations are becoming the norm, due to climate change, human exhaustion of natural resources, land degradation and loss of soil biodiversity. In this context, Si becomes a critical element, capacitating crops to grow more and better with less. A total of 467 articles up to 2021 were selected, reporting 501 experiments (lab-oriented and field trials) resulting in 682 cases where different Si-based fertilizers were used to study crops/plants with agronomic value to evaluate its physiological and/or agronomic performance under a specific motivation. Results show that 63% of cases testing Si-fertilization show increase in productivity, while 13% refuted this observation and 24% did not evaluate plant growth. Crop physiological responses was registered in 42% of the cases and only 3% did not report any alteration, although 55% did not evaluate these indicators. Symptom alleviation, in cases where stresses/limitations were studied, was registered in 74% of the cases with a low number of negative outcomes (9%). Field trials where crop yield was measured after application of Si-fertilization show that 69% of different measurements (599) register a yield improvement ≥ 5%, while 18% of the measurements registered between 0 and 5% and only 14% reported yield loss. Si-fertilization is therefore and important factor to improve crop yield and capacitate crops with resilience to endure future limitations. Its inclusion in modern agriculture should be considered in larger scales to adapt crops to the current challenges of sustainable agriculture and food provision.

Abstract: Soil organic matter (SOM) stocks are crucial for soil fertility and food provision and also contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation. However, assessing SOM changes in cropping systems is difficult due to the varying quantity and quality of input data. SOM processes have been described by several models, but these are complex and require high amounts of input data. In this work, we identified and selected frameworks that simulate SOM pools and stocks as well as the effects of different management practices. We also required that the frameworks be easily accessible for farm related end users and require limited and accessible amounts of input data. In all, six frameworks met our inclusion criteria: SOCRATES (Soil Organic Carbon Reserves and Transformations in EcoSystems), CCB (CANDY and-Carbon Balance), AMG, CENTURY, CQESTR, and RothC (Rothamsted Carbon Model). We collected information on these frameworks and compared them in terms of their accessibility, the model time steps used, the nutrient cycles included in the simulation, the number of SOM pools, and the agricultural management options included. Our results showed that CCB was the most robust of the frameworks considered, while AMG, CQESTR, and RothC performed the least well. However, all frameworks have strengths which may match the specific requirements and abilities of individual users.

Permanent ponds are valuable freshwater systems and biodiversity hotspots. They provide diverse ecosystem services (ES), including water quality improvement and supply, food provisioning and biodiversity support. This is despite being under significant pressure from multiple anthropogenic stressors and the impacts of ongoing global change. However, ponds are largely overlooked in management plans and legislation, and ecological research has focused on large freshwater ecosystems, such as rivers or lakes. Protection of ponds is often insufficient or indirectly provided via associated habitats such as wetlands. This phenomenon is likely exacerbated due to lacking a full-scale understanding of the importance of ponds. In this review, we provided a detailed overview of permanent ponds across Europe, including their usages and the biodiversity they support. By discussing the concepts of pondscape and metacommunity theory, we highlighted the importance of connectivity among and between ponds and identified fluxes of emerging insects as another ES of ponds. Those insects are rich in essential nutrients such as polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), which are delivered through them to the terrestrial environment, however the extent and impact of this ES remains largely unexplored. Several potential stressors, especially related to ongoing global change, which influence pond diversity and integrity were discussed. To conclude this review, we provided our insights on future pond management. Adaptive measures, taking into account the pond system per se within the pondscape, were found to be the most promising to mitigate the loss of natural ponds and restore and conserve natural small water bodies as refuges and diversity hotspots in increasingly urbanized landscapes.

As the solar energy production industry evolves it becomes more and more necessary to study with good definition the doping of solar cells in a laboratory. Today it is possible to acquire the equipment to do so, but all the options are costly. The measurements can be done using a Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS), Glow Discharge Optical Emission Spectroscopy (GD-OES) and Electrochemical Capacitance-Voltage (ECV). The first option offers results with great resolution, however it is a very expensive option. The GD-OES also emits results with good resolution but with low depth. The latter, the ECV, is easier to use and has great resolution, yet the commercial version of the equipment values 100 000¿. The motivation of this work is to reproduce ECV equipment, in a way that produces results with the same great resolution but at a lower price point. This work was done by researching and studying papers that used an ECV system and learning about all the physics behind the process. After compiling all the information, a first sketch was made for each component in AutoCAD, taking into account all the needs and safety measures until all the conditions were satisfied. In the end, all the components were designed and assembled in SolidWorks and then analyzed as a whole. To our knowledge this is the first study achieving a much cheaper ECV system with the same theoretical precision and little manual work. This method is more accessible to smaller laboratories with less resources, making it possible to study more doping pro les than ever before, thus accelerating the rate of solar energy investigation and related fields.

Muitos produtores de legumes e frutas têm uma baixa tolerância aos estragos causados por pragas. Predadores zoofitófagos, como Miridae (Heteroptera), estão a tornar-se cada vez mais importantes para o controlo biológico de importantes pragas agrícolas, embora explorem plantas tanto para a alimentação como para a oviposição. Apesar da sua importância e amplo uso, os mirídeos atualmente comercializados podem apresentar aspectos desfavoráveis que limitam a sua utilidade. Adicionalmente, nos últimos anos, estudos com inoculantes fúngicos têm revelado que a comunidade na rizosfera pode influenciar o desempenho de herbívoros acima do solo e seus inimigos naturais por meio dos seus efeitos na planta hospedeira. Neste estudo pretendeu-se testar a preferência para a oviposição de duas espécies de mirídeos zoofitófagos, Dicyphus cerastii Wagner e Nesidiocoris tenuis (Reuter), na presença de plantas de tomate em simbiose com fungos colonizadores das raízes ou da rizosfera, usando fungos micorrízicos arbusculares e um fungo do género Trichoderma. Assim, colocaram-se em várias gaiolas tomateiros sem Rhizoglomus irregulare / Trichoderma harzianum e tomateiros micorrizados / com Trichoderma harzianum. Seguidamente, largaram-se casais de mirídeos para que estes pudessem pôr ovos nas plantas. Passado 10 dias as plantas foram individualizadas, retirando e contando os adultos que se encontravam nas plantas. Nos dias seguintes, contou-se o número de ninfas. A micorriza Rhizoglomus irregulare não colonizou as raízes dos tomateiros, no entanto observou-se um maior número de adultos de Dicyphus cerastii e ninfas eclodidas de Nesidiocoris tenuis nos tomateiros colonizados por esta formulação do que de plantas não inoculadas, com valores estatisticamente significativos. No estudo com Trichoderma, para a atratividade dos adultos não foram encontradas diferenças estatisticamente significativas. Quanto ao número de ninfas eclodidas, verificou-se diferenças estatisticamente significativas, tendo a espécie Dicyphus cerastii sido mais elevada nas plantas inoculadas com Trichoderma harzianum enquanto a espécie Nesidiocoris tenuis foi mais elevada nas plantas sem Trichoderma harzianum.

Carbapenem-resistant and ESBL-producing Enterobacterales are critical antimicrobialresistant bacteria on the WHO priority list to guide the research, discovery, and development of new antimicrobials. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the occurrence and characterise ESBLproducing, carbapenemase-producing and/or colistin-resistant strains of Enterobacterales colonizing humans, animals (pigeons) and in the environment (bivalves). All samples were plated onto selective media for ESBL-producing bacteria, carbapenemresistant bacteria, and colistin-resistant bacteria. All Enterobacterales isolates recovered from the selective media were submitted to susceptibility tests and molecularly characterised by PCR and MLST. Conjugation experiments were performed in all carbapenemase producers. Among the 98 human samples from Cape Verde, five different ESBLs were detected, and six carbapenemase-producing isolates were recovered, all of the OXA-48-like type. The carbapenemaseencoding genes were located on IncFI or IncX3-type plasmids, whereas the blaOXA-244 gene was found to be chromosomally located. The five carbapenemase-producing isolates belonged to five distinct sequence types. Among the 100 faecal samples collected from pigeons in the Lisbon area, nine ESBLproducing were identified. Six isolates carried a blaCTX-M gene and three isolates harboured the blaSHV-12 gene. Genotyping of these strains revealed seven different STs. Concerning the 163 environmental samples, isolated from bivalves recovered from de Portuguese coast, we found eight ESBL-producing isolates, all CTX-M-producers, and one carbapenemase-producing isolate (blaGES-5). In conclusion, our study reports for the first time the emergence of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales among hospitalized patients in Cape Verde. On the other hand, this study evidenced that pigeons in urban areas may play a role as potential reservoirs of multidrug-resistant bacteria, namely ESBL producers. Moreover, we showed that bivalves may also be contaminated with ESBL producers. Therefore, the surveillance and monitoring of antibiotic resistant Enterobacterales remains essential in a One Health approach to counteract the spread of such pathogens.

A dissertação trata de uma discussão sobre o cânone literário em Moçambique. Considero que o cânone atual está desactualizado e é, de certo modo, uma relíquia do passado. O futuro da literatura moçambicana necessita de maior abertura, ou da renovação do cânone, de modo a incluir não só as obras do passado, mas permitir a inclusão de novas tendências estéticas, novos temas e propostas de escrita. A dissertação visa propôr uma discussão e um novo quadro de referência para o cânone literário moçambicano, através do qual um leitor crítico possa cogitar em diferentes perspetivas sobre este cânone. Foi nossa intenção refletir sobre o cânone, de modo a sugerir como possa ser repensado. Propomos que o cânone atual deva ser considerado temporário e que seria recomendável haver num futuro próximo uma discussão democrática, franca e aberta na comunidade literária moçambicana e internacional sobre outras perspectivas do cânone, como, por exemplo, os modos de ser enquadrado num século com realidades fundamentalmente diferentes do século anterior. Torna-se necessário refletir e iniciar uma discussão sobre o cânone com mais amplitude, de forma a estudar e compreender a literatura moçambicana. Este é o objetivo fundamental da dissertação.

No summary/description provided

A realização em Lisboa, nos dias 12 a 14 de setembro de 2022, no Instituto de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território da Universidade de Lisboa, do Congresso Geosaúde 2022, subordinado ao tema “Desigualdades em saúde, desigualdades no território: desafios para os países de língua portuguesa em contexto de pós-pandemia”, criou a oportunidade de reunir académicos e profissionais de várias áreas relacionadas com a saúde.

O teletrabalho, adotado por muitas empresas e instituições em resposta à pandemia, contribuiu de forma positiva para a minimização da poluição atmosférica, para o aumento do tempo com a família e para a redução de custos de deslocação no orçamento familiar. Contudo, levantou incertezas relativamente aos seus efeitos positivos, uma vez que gerou o aumento da intensidade de trabalho, o isolamento social e a afetação psicológica dos trabalhadores, levando a questionar o futuro dos modelos de trabalho híbridos que possam ter surgido. Este artigo tem como principal objetivo identificar o impacto da COVID-19 na utilização do teletrabalho e discutir os seus efeitos nas famílias. O trabalho foi realizado na Área Metropolitana de Lisboa Norte, em pleno contexto pandémico. Em termos metodológicos, identificaram-se quais os setores em que o teletrabalho tem maior expressão para, numa segunda etapa, se realizar um inquérito que permitisse aferir as práticas diárias e os padrões de mobilidade das famílias. Os resultados sugerem que a opção de adotar o regime de trabalho remoto não é unânime por parte dos inquiridos, tendo-se identificado efeitos para as famílias. Por sua vez, este método de trabalho, ainda que tenha dificultado a separação entre vida pessoal e profissional, possibilitou a poupança de tempo e gastos utilizados nas deslocações diárias casa-trabalho, como apontado pelos inquiridos. Como conclusões, avançamos que os desafios dos modelos de teletrabalho ou modelos híbridos poderão prender-se com: a gestão de tempo e a work-family balance; a perceção de produtividade empregado/empregador; a noção do direito a ‘desligar’; e a melhoria na saúde mental e ambiental.

Sparkling wines represent a distinctive wine type and are highly valued worldwide. They are produced through a second alcoholic fermentation of a base wine, performed by selected strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, inside a closed vessel, which in the case of the traditional method is the bottle ultimately delivered to the consumer. Once in the base wine and during the second fermentation, yeasts are forced to endure very stressful conditions, such as high ethanol contents (8-12%) and temperatures usually below 16ºC. Very low temperatures (9-10ºC), not uncommon in large underground cellars, are particularly problematic, being an important cause of sluggish or stuck fermentations even when yeasts are properly acclimatized before inoculation. The work herein described had the objective of studying sparkling wine yeasts’ physiological changes and adaptation behaviour under very low temperature in-bottle second fermentations. For the purpose, two yeast strains and two base wines were used in small scale in-bottle second fermentations at 10ºC, mimicking actual traditional method production conditions. Each strain was separately inoculated into each of both base wines, and in all four experimental conditions a multiparametric characterisation was conducted throughout the fermentation process. This characterisation, broad and integrative, focused on a number of cytological, physiological and molecular properties of yeasts, intending to thoroughly assess the evolution and heterogeneity of their vitality and adaptation state. Parameters evaluated were: viability, fermentation kinetics, total proteins, trehalose, glycogen, neutral lipids, and expression levels of selected genes (HSP12, GPD1, GSH1 and TRX2). Both strains showed similar fermentative performances, and no specific cell properties and/or adaptation responses could be pointed as particularly relevant in favouring or hindering a second fermentation at very low temperatures. To better clarify this issue, further analogous studies should be performed with additional strains known or expected to exhibit higher and/or lower fermentative performances at the tested conditions.

No summary/description provided

In this thesis it is proposed an annotation module to be applied in the context of Machine Translation (MT) concerning the East Asian languages of Japanese, Korean and Mandarin for the purpose of assessing MT output quality through annotation. The annotation module was created based on a data-driven analysis over Customer Support content in these languages previously annotated with the Unbabel Error Typology, which is a general typology in the sense that it is not conceived for any specific groups of languages. As such, this work also explores how applying translation error typologies inadequate to certain languages or content types can have an impact on how annotation reflects the quality of a translation. For the purpose of testing the effectiveness of the proposed annotation module, an annotation experiment for the languages under analysis was conducted. This experiment consisted of, for each language, annotating the same content using three different error typologies: the Unbabel Error Typology, the MQM-compliant error taxonomy for the translation direction of English to Chinese proposed by Ye and Toral (2020) and the annotation module proposed on this thesis. Furthermore, each dataset was annotated by two annotators. This allowed a comparison of Inter-annotator agreement (IAA) scores, which constitutes an important metric in terms of evaluating the effectiveness of an error typology. In light of this, each of the tested typologies was analyzed based on the obtained IAA scores and a further in-depth analysis of concrete annotations which lead to an understanding over their strengths and limitations. With this work it was possible to demonstrate that, if on one hand using error typologies inadequate for the content annotated has a negative impact on the quality of said annotations, on the other hand applying an error typology specific to the content being annotated can result in more consistent annotations.

Entre os finais do século XVI e a segunda metade do século XVII escreveram-se inúmeros tratados sobre a peste; esta doença contagiosa de mortalidade elevada era ainda o maior problema de saúde pública que qualquer comunidade enfrentava. Este trabalho tem três objectivos: o primeiro é dar a conhecer os tratados sobre a peste escritos por três médicos portugueses, a saber: Rodrigo de Castro, Ambrósio Nunes e Curvo Semedo, nos anos de 1596, 1601, e 1680 respectivamente, relembrando a importância destes autores na sua época (e para além dela), e na história da medicina portuguesa. O segundo é salientar a importância da cultura ibérica (fundamental na formação destes médicos), permeável à influência de saberes de outras civilizações (nomeadamente a árabe) e, simultaneamente, capaz de assimilar as referências da Antiguidade Clássica. O terceiro é tentar demonstrar a importância que estes tratados tiveram – tal como muitos outros do mesmo género – no desenvolvimento e na melhoria das condições de higiene e de salubridade urbana, e na luta contra a pobreza na civilização ocidental. Uma leitura cuidada dos tratados referidos mostrou como estes problemas milenares e sem fronteiras beneficiaram da devoção destes médicos na luta que travaram contra as sucessivas vagas pestilenciais, e como este desígnio se revelou essencial para que a saúde se tornasse um “bem público”.

This paper investigates the intersections of gender, sexuality, ageing in the way autism spectrum disorder is medically described as a discrete category. On one hand, the construction of autism as a male-centric phe- nomenon results in a significant gender gap in autism diagnosis, with girls diagnosed with autism significantly less and later than boys. On the other hand, the focus on depicting autism as a pediatric condition exposes adult autistics to discriminatory practices such as infantilization and contributes to the disregard of their sexual desires or to the misconception of their sexual behaviors as dangerous or inappropriate. Both infantilization and the supposed inability of autistic people to “fit” into adulthood have a significant impact on both sexuality’s ex- pressions and ageing experiences. My study suggests how fostering knowledge and further learning on the infantilization of autism can bring important insight into understanding disability from a critical angle. By challenging normative notions of gender, ageing, and sexuality, autistic people’s different bodily experiences question medical authority and social politics and criticize the public representation of autism in the broader social space.

No summary/description provided

A imagem do Japão na literatura brasileira, associada com impressões de viagens transoceânicas de curiosos viajantes ocidentais nos finais do século XIX e nos inícios do XX, começou a mudar quando os imigrantes japoneses puseram os pés em solo brasileiro. À medida que a comunidade nikkei desenvolve a sua voz na sociedade brasileira, observa-se no Brasil um interesse crescente pela sua cultura e pelas suas criações artísticas literárias, o que contribui para o surgimento de numerosos estudos e publicações em várias áreas, de autores nikkeis e também não-nikkeis. O presente trabalho visa examina a construção de diversas imagens e perceções sobre o Japão na literatura brasileira contemporânea, explorando analiticamente a utilização e a adaptação de uma multiplicidade de recursos e enfoques culturais, literários e históricos. Para tanto, serão analisadas comparativamente diversas obras ficcionais – quatro romances e um livro de crónicas – de autores brasileiros contemporâneos, que recriam literariamente o Japão, a cultura japonesa e, alguns deles, a influência dessa cultura na formação histórica, social e cultural do Brasil dos séculos XX e XXI. Neste contexto, interpretações e visões heterogéneas sobre o Japão são formuladas no processo de deslocamento transnacional ou migratório vivido pelos próprios autores ou pelas suas figuras ficcionais, explorando vários aspetos relevantes, tais como tradições culturais, literatura, poesia, filosofia e estética, envolvendo também perceções históricas e sociológicas. Por meio das análises textuais e do exame das relações intertextuais presentes nas obras do corpus, pretende-se refletir, assim, sobre a diversidade cultural e identitária do Brasil e sobre uma das mais relevantes tendências transnacionais da literatura brasileira contemporânea, que surge num contexto marcado por fronteiras culturais e nacionais cada vez mais deterritorializadas.