Fatores ambientais revelam fragmentação nos padrões espaciais de ocorrência do texugo Euroasiático (Meles meles) em Portugal

Mestrado em Ecologia AplicadaPerceber os fatores ambientais que influenciam a ocorrência e distribuição de espécies é essencial para a formulação de medidas de conservação eficientes. O texugo Europeu (Meles meles) é um dos carnívoros mais comuns nos ecossistemas Mediterrânicos mas o aumento da fragmentação de habitat nas últimas décadas pode originar uma mudança no seu estatuto e distribuição. A sua ampla distribuição geográfica juntamente com o facto de ser uma espécie generalista em termos de habitat e alimentação torna difícil encontrar um padrão de seleção de habitat único. Neste estudo foram analisados os factores ambientais que influenciam a localização das tocas (vulgarmente conhecidas como texugueiras e usadas para reprodução e refúgio), a ocorrência de texugo e o risco de atropelamentos. O principal objectivo é avaliar os padrões espaciais de habitats de alta qualidade e de alto risco para a conservação do texugo em Portugal. Prospetámos o centro de Portugal à procura de texugueiras e compilámos os dados de ocorrência de texugo e de atropelamentos a nível nacional. Usámos modelos lineares generalizados (GLM) para examinar os fatores que influenciam a localização das texugueiras e modelos de entropia máxima (MaxEnt) para analisar o que leva à ocorrência de texugo e à sua mortalidade nas estradas. Por fim, os três modelos foram sobrepostos com o objetivo de identificar áreas prioritárias para a conservação do texugo. Os nossos resultados revelaram uma fragmentação no padrão espacial dos habitats primários. Surpreedentemente, o texugo evita áreas densamente florestadas para a seleção do local das texugueiras e a sua ocorrência está positivamente relacionada com a presença de alguma proporção de campos agrícolas, solos sedimentares e áreas abertas. O risco de atropelamento é mais elevado em autoestradas com sinuosidade baixa e perto de zonas abertas. Os nossos resultados realçam a importância da manutenção de florestas Mediterrânicas naturais, pastos e zonas agrícolas. Deve ser dada prioridade às zonas de alto risco em termos de investigação (validar os resultados com uma estimativa das taxas de atropelamentos) e conservação (incluir passagens para minimizar o número de atropelamentos). É necessário mais investigação para determinar se as áreas de habitat primário disponíveis têm algum efeito na viabilidade das populações de texugo ao longo do tempo.Understanding the environmental features that influence organism’s occurrence and distribution is essential to formulate efficient conservation measures. The European badger (Meles meles) is one of the most common carnivores in Mediterrranean environments but the increase of habitat fragmentation over the last decades may lead to a change in their status and distribution. Badger have an wide geographic distribution and together with the fact that are generalist in terms of habitat and food makes it difficult to find a unic habitat selection pattern. In this study we address to analyse the environmental drivers that influence the location of badger setts (used for reproduction and refuge), the occurrence of badgers and their risk of road mortality. The main goal of this study is to evaluate the spatial patterns of habitats of high quality and high risk for badger conservation in Portugal. We surveyed the centre of Portugal in search of badger setts and compiled badger occurrence and road-kill data at a national level. We used generalized linear modelling (GLM) to examine which factors influence the badger sett sites and maximum entropy modelling (MaxEnt) to analyse the drivers of badger occurrence and road mortality. Finally, we overlapped the three models to identify priority areas for badger conservation. Our results reveal a fragmented pattern of primary habitats for badgers. Surprisingly, when selecting the location of badger setts they seem to avoid densily forested areas and their occurrence is positively related to some amount of agricultural fields, sedimentary ground and open areas. Road mortality risk is high at highways with low sinuosity and close to open areas. Our results highlight the importance of the mantainance of natural Mediterranean forests, pastures and some agricultural lands. Priority should be given to risky areas in terms of reasearch (by validating the results with the estimation of road-kill rates) and of conservation (inclusion of crossing structures to minimize the number of road-kill events). Further research should be performed to determine whether the available primary habitat have an effect on populations viability over time

For a healthy (and) higher education: evidences from learning outcomes in Health Sciences

Increased recognition of outcomes, or competency-based education, has evolved across higher education on health sciences. However, there is significant diversity in the current study of Portuguese programmes. Considering learning outcomes (LO) as indicators of knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and the understanding that the student will gain as a result of an educational experience, this study aims to explore which LO are emphasised on the study programmes of health sciences in Portugal. Through a qualitative methodology, carried out through MAXQDA software, all LO of all Portuguese health sciences study programmes submitted to quality accreditation to the Portuguese Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES) since 2009 until 2016 were analysed. Although specific knowledge was the most referenced LO, transversal skills were also emphasized, such as critical and reflexive analysis/critical thinking, research, ability to organize and plan and professional ethics. Significant differences were found between LO selection when the analysis was made by comparing the diverse study programmes. This required assortment of knowledge and skills seems to reflect not only the specificities of each health science programme but also the challenging demands on professionals in the 21st century, along with the necessary changes imposed by society, fostering intercultural understanding, tolerance, mutual respect and an ethic of global citizenship and shared responsibility, crucial enablers of educational development for all in the scope of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Predicting Cetacean Distributions in the Eastern North Atlantic to Support Marine Management

Acknowledgments We thank all the volunteers for their contribution and dedication during the monitoring campaigns. This manscript is a product of the work of every observer who participated in the CETUS Project. We are extremely grateful to TRANSINSULAR, the cargo ship company that provided all the logistic support, and to the ships’ crews for their hospitality. We also thank Vasilis Valavanis for his valuable advice about the use of oceanographic variables.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Motivations Influencing the Surgeon’s Healthcare Unit Choice to Perform Surgery: A Confirmatory Study in Portugal

Quality surgical practice is a fundamental subject in health institutions, and it is important to understand the structural and organizational conditions of the operating room (OR). The present exploratory study sought to understand the motivations that underlie the choice of surgeons for the best healthcare unit to perform surgery, as well as the characteristics of those professionals regarding age, years of work experience, and sex. A questionnaire survey was administered to a convenience sample of 99 surgeons, 67.3% male and 32.7% female, aged 37 to 66 (M = 23.7; Std = 8.92). The results show that at the top of the surgeons' motivations to perform surgery is the 77.8% attributed to the human resources and equipment available and at the other extreme the 3% to the previous online visit to facilities. This study opens important clues to the development of more in-depth and comparative approaches, necessary for the continuous improvement of the healthcare provided in the context of surgical practice.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Conversion of Cn-unsaturated into Cn-2-saturated LCFA can occur uncoupled from methanogenesis in anaerobic bioreactors

Fat, oils, and grease present in complex wastewater can be readily converted to methane, but the energy potential of these compounds is not always recyclable, due to incomplete degradation of long chain fatty acids (LCFA) released during lipids hydrolysis. Oleate (C18:1) is generally the dominant LCFA in lipid-containing wastewater, and its conversion in anaerobic bioreactors results in palmitate (C16:0) accumulation. The reason why oleate is continuously converted to palmitate without further degradation via β-oxidation is still unknown. In this work, the influence of methanogenic activity in the initial conversion steps of unsaturated LCFA was studied in 10 bioreactors continuously operated with saturated or unsaturated C16- and C18-LCFA, in the presence or absence of the methanogenic inhibitor bromoethanesulfonate (BrES). Saturated Cn-2-LCFA accumulated both in the presence and absence of BrES during the degradation of unsaturated Cn-LCFA, and represented more than 50\% of total LCFA. In the presence of BrES further conversion of saturated intermediates did not proceed, not even when prolonged batch incubation was applied. As the initial steps of unsaturated LCFA degradation proceed uncoupled from methanogenesis, accumulation of saturated LCFA can be expected. Analysis of the active microbial communities suggests a role for facultative anaerobic bacteria in the initial steps of unsaturated LCFA biodegradation. Understanding this role is now imperative to optimize methane production from LCFA.European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No 323009, and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684), and Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462). We also thank the Gravitation grant (project 024.002.002) of the Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Netherlands Science Foundation (NWO

Effect of sulfate and iron (III) on LCFA degradation by a methanogenic community

[Excerpt] Under anaerobic conditions long chain fatty acids (LCFA) can be converted to methane by syntrophic bacteria and methanogenic archaea. LCFA degradation was also reported in the presence of alternative hydrogenotrophic partners, such as sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) and iron-reducing bacteria (IRB), which generally show higher affinity for H2 than methanogens and are more resistant to LCFA [1,2,3]. Their presence in a microbial culture degrading LCFA can be advantageous to reduce LCFA toxicity towards methanogens, although high concentrations of external electron acceptor (EEA) can lead to outcompetition of methanogens and cease methane production. In this work, we tested the effect of adding sub-stoichiometric concentrations of sulfate and iron(III) to methanogenic communities degrading LCFA. (...

Growth of sulfate reducing bacteria on the methanogenic inhibitor BES

The metabolism of methanogenic archaea is inhibited by 2-bromoethanesulfonate (BES). Methane production is blocked because BES is an analog of methyl-coenzyme M and competes with this key molecule in the last step of methanogenesis. For this reason, BES is commonly used in several studies to avoid growth of acetoclastic and hydrogenotrophic methanogens [1]. Despite its effectiveness as methanogenic inhibitor, BES was found to alter microbial communities’ structure, to inhibit the metabolism of non-methanogenic microorganisms and to stimulate homoacetogenic metabolism [2,3]. Even though sulfonates have been reported as electron acceptors for sulfate- and sulfite-reducing bacteria (SRB), only one study described the reduction of BES by complex microbial communities [4]. In this work, a sulfate-reducing bacterium belonging to Desulfovibrio genus (98 % identity at the 16S rRNA gene level with Desulfovibrio aminophilus) was isolated from anaerobic sludge after several successive transfers in anaerobic medium containing BES as sole substrate. Sulfate was not supplemented to the anaerobic growth medium. This microorganism was able to grow under the following conditions: on BES plus H2/CO2 in bicarbonate buffered medium; on BES without H2/CO2 in bicarbonate buffered medium; and on BES in phosphate buffered medium. The main products of BES utilization were sulfide and acetate, the former was produced by the reduction of sulfur from the sulfonate moiety of BES and the latter likely originated from the carbon backbone of the BES molecule. BES was found, in this study, to represent not only an alternative electron acceptor but also to serve as electron donor, and sole carbon and energy source, supporting growth of a Desulfovibrio sp. obtained in pure culture. This is the first study that reports growth of SRB with BES as electron donor and electron acceptor, showing that the methanogenic inhibitor is a substrate for anaerobic growth

Exploring syntrophic relationships in the anaerobic biodegradation of lipids and long chain fatty acids

ICBM-3 - 3rd International Conference on Biogas Microbiology (Abstract Book)[Excerpt] Practical knowledge on anaerobic digestion of waste lipids has been improving for several decades, but the microbiology of these processes remains partially undisclosed, with non-cultivated taxonomic groups often detected in anaerobic communities degrading lipids. This work studies the diversity and physiology of anaerobic microorganisms involved in the metabolism of lipids and long chain fatty acids. Anaerobic culturing procedures were applied for the development of enrichment cultures, and combined with next generation sequencing techniques. Enriched microbial communities specialized in the degradation of triolein (0.3 mmol·L-1) and oleate (1 mmol·L-1) were obtained under methanogenic conditions. Oleatedegrading cultures were also developed in the presence of the external electron acceptors ferric hydroxide (75 mmol·L-1) or sulfate (15 mmol·L-1). Three mesophilic sludges from different origins were used as inocula. [...]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Co-cultivation of Thermoanaerobacter strains with a methanogenic partner enhances glycerol conversion

Glycerolrich waste streams produced by the biodiesel, bioethanol and oleochemical industries can be treated and valorized by anaerobic microbial communities to produce methane. As current knowledge of the microorganisms involved in thermophilic glycerol conversion to methane is scarce, thermophilic glyceroldegrading methanogenic communities were enriched. A coculture of Thermoanaerobacter and Methanothermobacter species was obtained, pointing to a nonobligately syntrophic glycerol degradation. This hypothesis was further studied by incubating Thermoanaerobacter brockii subsp. finnii and T. wiegelii with glycerol (10 mM) in pure culture and with different hydrogenotrophic methanogens. The presence of the methanogen accelerated glycerol fermentation by the two Thermoanaerobacter strains up to 3.3 mM day1, corresponding to 12 times higher volumetric glycerol depletion rates in the methanogenic cocultures than in the pure bacterial cultures. The catabolic pathways of glycerol conversion were identified by genome analysis of the two Thermoanaerobacter strains. NADH and reduced ferredoxin formed in the pathway are linked to proton reduction, which becomes thermodynamically favourable when the hydrogen partial pressure is kept low by the hydrogenotrophic methanogenic partner.The authors thank Ruben Gonçalves for preparing the thermophilic biomass and Andreia Salvador for the sup port with the microbial communities’ analysis. This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2019 unit, Project SAICTPAC/0040/2015 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016403) and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER 000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 – Programa Opera cional Regional do Norte. The authors also acknowledge the financial support of FCT and European Social Fund through the grants attributed to C.P. Magalhaes (SFRH/BD/132845/2017) and A.L. Arantes (PD/BD/128030/2016).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Enhanced glycerol conversion by Thermoanaerobacter strains

Glycerol-rich waste streams produced as a surplus by the biodiesel industry can be treated and valorized by anaerobic microbial communities to produce biogas. Glycerol is a highly reduced compound. Its complete degradation to methane and carbon dioxide requires a syntrophic cooperation of anaerobic bacteria and archaea, either directly or through propionate, lactate or ethanol as intermediates. The aim of this work was to study glycerol valorization to methane by thermophilic microbial communities. Glycerol-degrading methanogenic communities were enriched at 55 ºC. A co-culture of Thermoanaerobacter and Methanothermobacter was obtained pointing to facultatively syntrophic glycerol degradation. This hypothesis was further tested by incubating Thermoanaerobacter brockii subsp. finnii and T. wiegelli type strains with glycerol (10 mmol L-1) in pure culture and with different hydrogenotrophic methanogens. The presence of the methanogen accelerated glycerol fermentation by the two Thermoanaerobacter strains up to 3.3 mmol L-1 day-1, corresponding to 12 times higher volumetric glycerol depletion rates in the methanogenic co-cultures than in pure bacterial cultures. The methanogen acted as a biological electron acceptor, which enhanced glycerol conversion by Thermoanaerobacter species, since it facilitates the redox balance and contributes to a higher energy gain of these bacteria. Therefore, syntrophic glycerol fermentation promotes faster anaerobic treatment of glycerol rich waste streams coupled to methane production.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio