SelectedWorks - Joana Figueiredo

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Selected Works of Joana Figueiredo

Associate Professor

My research aims to increase our understanding of the environmental factors that are hampering the recovery rates of coral populations and to study how recovery rates can be bolstered by management actions. My research integrates experimentation and mathematical modeling approaches to predict current and future dispersal patterns of coral species. Specifically, I aim to elucidate how larval development dynamics of marine invertebrates determine important ecological processes, such as dispersal, recruitment and connectivity among populations and to predict how and to what extent climate change may alter these patterns.

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About Joana Figueiredo

My research aims to increase our understanding of the environmental factors that are hampering the recovery rates of coral populations and to study how recovery rates can be bolstered by management actions. My research integrates experimentation and mathematical modeling approaches to predict current and future dispersal patterns of coral species. Specifically, I aim to elucidate how larval development dynamics of marine invertebrates determine important ecological processes, such as dispersal, recruitment and connectivity among populations and to predict how and to what extent climate change may alter these patterns.

Articles (37)

An Indo-Pacifc coral spawning database (Andrew H Baird, James R Guest, Alasdair J Edwards, et al.) Scientific Data (2021)

The discovery of multi-species synchronous spawning of scleractinian corals on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1980s stimulated an extraordinary effort to document spawning times in other parts of the globe. Unfortunately, most of these ...

Thermal Stress-Related Spatiotemporal Variations in High-Latitude Coral Reef Benthic Communities (Nicholas P Jones, Joana Figueiredo and David S Gilliam) Coral Reefs (2020)

High-latitude coral reef communities have been postulated as the first areas to undergo reorganisation under climate change. Tropicalisation has been identified in some high-latitude communities and is predicted in others, but it is unclear how ...

Fine-Scale Coral Connectivity Pathways in the Florida Reef Tract: Implications for Conservation and Restoration (Charles Frys, Antoine Saint-Amand, Matthieu Le Henaff, et al.) Frontiers in Marine Science (2020)

Connectivity between coral reefs is critical to ensure their resilience and persistence against disturbances. It is driven by ocean currents, which often have very complex patterns within reef systems. Only biophysical models that simulate both ...

Ocean Acidification Partially Mitigates the Negative Effects of Warming on the Recruitment of the Coral Orbicella faveolata (Kelly A. Pitts, Justin E. Campbell, Joana Figueiredo, et al.) Coral Reefs (2020)

Ocean acidification and ocean warming constitute major threats to many calcifying reef organisms, including scleractinian corals. The combined effects of these two environmental stressors on the earliest life history stages of reef calcifiers remain poorly ...

High‐Frequency Sampling and Piecewise Models Reshape Dispersal Kernels of a Common Reef Coral (Joanne Moneghetti, Joana Figueiredo, Andrew H. Baird, et al.) Ecology (2019)

Models of dispersal potential are required to predict connectivity between populations of sessile organisms. However, to date, such models do not allow for time‐varying rates of acquisition and loss of competence to settle and metamorphose, ...

Effects of Ocean Warming and Acidification on Fertilization Success and Early Larval Development in the Green Sea Urchin Lytechinus variegatus (Brittney L Lenz, Nicole Fogarty and Joana Figueiredo) Marine Pollution Bulletin (2019)

Ocean acidification and warming are predicted to affect the early life of many marine organisms, but their effects can be synergistic or antagonistic. This study assessed the combined effects of near-future (2100) ocean acidification (pH ...

Thresholds and Drivers of Coral Calcification Responses to Climate Change (Niklas Kornder, Bernhard Riegl and Joana Figueiredo) Global Change Biology (2018)

Increased temperature and CO2 levels are considered key drivers of coral reef degradation. However, individual assessments of ecological responses (calcification) to these stressors are often contradicting. To detect underlying drivers of heterogeneity in coral calcification ...

Comparing length-measurement methods and estimating growth parameters of free-swimming whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) near the South Ari Atoll, Maldives (Cameron T Perry, Joana Figueiredo, Jeremy Vaudo, et al.) Marine & Freshwater Research (2018)

Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) are an endangered species whose growth and reproductive biology are poorly understood. Given their conservation concern, estimating growth parameters, as traditionally derived from vertebral samples of dead animals, is challenging. We ...

Assessment of Mesophotic Coral Ecosystem Connectivity for Proposed Expansion of a Marine Sanctuary in the Northwest Gulf of Mexico: Larval Dynamics (Lysel Garavelli, Michael S. Studivan, Joshua D. Voss, et al.) Frontiers in Marine Science (2018)

In coral reef ecosystems, mesophotic coral habitat (>30 m to the end of the photic zone) are extensions of shallow reefs and contribute to the persistence of coral reef populations. In the North West Gulf ...

Additive Negative Effects of Anthropogenic Sedimentation and Warming on the Survival of Coral Recruits (Francesca Fourney and Joana Figueiredo) Scientific Reports (2017)

Corals worldwide are facing population declines due to global climate change and local anthropogenic impacts. Global climate change effects are hard to tackle but recent studies show that some coral species can better handle climate ...

Coral Larvae are Poor Swimmers and Require Fine-Scale Reef Structure to Settle (Tom Hata, Joshua S. Madin, Vivian R. Cumbo, et al.) Scientific Reports (2017)

Reef coral assemblages are highly dynamic and subject to repeated disturbances, which are predicted to increase in response to climate change. Consequently there is an urgent need to improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying ...

A Framework for Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Coral Reef Social-Ecological Systems (Josh Eli Cinner, Morgan S. Pratchett, Nicholas Anthony James Graham, et al.) Regional Environmental Change (2016)

Corals and coral-associated species are highly vulnerable to the emerging effects of global climate change. The widespread degradation of coral reefs, which will be accelerated by climate change, jeopardizes the goods and services that tropical ...

Connectivity Between Submerged and Near-Sea-Surface Coral Reefs: Can Submerged Reef Populations Act as Refuges? (Christopher J. Thomas, Tom C. L. Bridge, Joana Figueiredo, et al.) Diversity and Distributions (2015)

Aim Connectivity is a key determinant of coral reef resilience. However, connectivity models rarely account for deep or submerged reefs, despite their widespread occurrence in many coral reef provinces. Here, we model coral larval connectivity ...

Comment on “Chemically Mediated Behavior of Recruiting Corals and Fishes: A Tipping Point That May Limit Reef Recovery” (Andrew H. Baird, Vivian R. Cumbo, Joana Figueiredo, et al.) PeerJ (2014)

Dixson et al. (2014) report that coral larvae navigate towards chemical cues associated with healthy reefs and avoid cues from degraded reefs. However, the swimming capabilities of coral larvae and well-established patterns of recruitment and ...

Interacting Regional-Scale Regime Shifts for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Paul Leadley, Juan Fernandez-Manjarres, Enora Bruley, et al.) Bioscience (2014)

Current trajectories of global change may lead to regime shifts at regional scales, driving coupled human–environment systems to highly degraded states in terms of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being. For business-as-usual socioeconomic development pathways, ...

Increased Local Retention of Reef Coral Larvae as a Result of Ocean Warming (Joana Figueiredo, Andrew H. Baird, Saki Harii, et al.) Nature Climate Change (2014)

Climate change will alter many aspects of the ecology of organisms, including dispersal patterns and population connectivity. Understanding these changes is essential to predict future species distributions, estimate potential for adaptation, and design effective networks ...

A Pre-Zygotic Barrier to Hybridization in Two Con-Generic Species of Scleractinian Corals (Andrew H. Baird, Vivian R. Cumbo, Joana Figueiredo, et al.) F1000Research (2013)

Hybridization is often cited as a potential source of evolutionary novelty in the order Scleractinia. While hybrid embryos can be produced in vitro, it has been difficult to identify adult hybrids in the wild. Here, ...

Synthesizing Larval Competence Dynamics and Reef-Scale Retention Reveals a High Potential for Self-recruitment in Corals (Joana Figueiredo, Andrew H. Baird and Sean R. Connolly) Ecology (2013)

Many organisms have a complex life-cycle in which dispersal occurs at the propagule stage. For marine environments, there is growing evidence that high levels of recruitment back to the natal population (self-recruitment) are common in ...

Dispersal-Mediated Coexistence Under Recruitment Limitation and Displacement Competition (Joana Figueiredo and Sean R. Connolly) Ecological Modelling (2012)

Understanding biodiversity maintenance when species compete for shared limiting resources remains an outstanding ecological problem. For a half century, the competition–colonization trade-off has been invoked to explain species coexistence. More recently, asymmetric dispersal has been ...

The Consumption of DHA During Embryogenesis as an Indicative of the Need to Supply DHA During Early Larval Development: A Review (Joana Figueiredo, Junda Lin, Justin Anto, et al.) Journal of Aquaculture Research and Development (2012)

The establishment of an adequate larval diet for crustacean and fish often involves a series of time-consuming and expensive trial and errors. Despite being nutritionally poor, rotifers and Artemia are the most commonly used preys ...

Ontogenetic Change in the Lipid and Fatty Acid Composition of Scleractinian Coral Larvae (Joana Figueiredo, Andrew H. Baird, M. F. Cohen, et al.) Coral Reefs (2012)

Some scleractinian coral larvae have an extraordinary capacity to delay metamorphosis, and this is reflected in the large geographic range of many species. Coral eggs typically contain a high proportion of wax esters, which have ...

Regime Shifts in a Socio-Ecological Model of Farmland Abandonment (Joana Figueiredo and Henrique M. Pereira) Landscape Ecology (2011)

We developed a mathematical model with two-way linked socio-ecological dynamics to study farmland abandonment and to understand the regimes shifts of this socio-ecological system. The model considers that migration is a collective behavior socio-economically driven ...

Artemia franciscana Enrichment Model — How to Keep Them Small, Rich and Alive? (Joana Figueiredo, Robert van Woesik and Junda Lin) Aquaculture (2009)

Artemia nauplii are among the most commonly used cultured prey in aquaculture, but they may lack certain essential fatty acids pertinent to their target species. While enrichment can improve Artemia nutritional profile, enrichment procedures can ...

Productivity Improvement of Red Clinging Crab Mithraculus forceps Through Modeling (Joana Figueiredo) World Aquaculture (2009)

Egg Volume, Energy Content and Fatty Acid Profile of Maja brachydactyla (Crustacea: Brachyura: Majidae) During Embryogenesis (Joana Figueiredo and Luis Narciso) Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (2008)

Fatty-acid and energy content of Maja brachydactyla eggs at different developmental stages (recently spawned, half-developed and ready to hatch) were analysed in order to understand what is being consumed and produced during the embryonic development. ...