No próximo dia 5 de dezembro celebramos o Dia Mundial do Solo, com um conjunto de atividades abertas ao público.

Complexo Pedagógico, Científico e Tecnológico | a partir das 14:00 h | entrada livre

Para conhecer um pouco mais sobre a importância da data e do estudo dos solos fomos conversar informalmente com três das nossas investigadoras e interromper o seu trabalho. A terceira conversa foi com Ana Bastos (CESAM |Departamento de Ambiente e Ordenamento da Universidade de Aveiro).

Os excertos abaixo são o resultado dessa breve conversa informal, que ocorreu nos seus laboratórios. Vídeo disponível aqui

Comunicação_CESAM: ‘Qual a importância que os solos possuem no nosso quotidiano?’

Ana Bastos: A nossa vida gira em volta do solo. O solo desempenha inúmeras funções vitais, e ao fazê-lo, está a prestar-nos múltiplos serviços. Poderíamos passar o resto do dia a falar das funções que o solo desempenha, mas há efetivamente algumas com que nos deparamos mais no nosso dia-a-dia: é estrutura e suporte para as nossas habitações e construções; é a base para a produção dos nossos alimentos (aliás, a FAO Fact Sheets estima que cerca de 95% das calorias que gastamos diariamente provém do solo) mas também fornece biomassa e matérias-primas (incl. as fibras téxteis para o nosso vestuário); regula a abundância e a qualidade dos nossos recursos hídricos (incluíndo eventos extremos, como inundações), assim como a qualidade do ar e da atmosfera (e neste caso, sendo a 2ª maior reserva de carbono do planeta, depois dos oceanos, tem um papel central na regulação climática); e aquela pela qual tenho uma preferência especial, é a de que é um reservatório de vida e biodiversidade ‘por excelência’, biodiversidade essa que tem inúmeras aplicações importantes, tal como na industria alimentar e na biomedicina (sabia que muitos dos nossos fármacos, incluindo antibióticos, imuno-suppressores e antitumorais, provém de (micro)organismos do solo?).

No entanto, os solos estão sujeitos a inúmeras pressões, nomeadamente de origem antropogénica. Por isso, é vital investigarmos o modo como as nossas atividades impactam o solo, para podermos definir metas e soluções concretas para problemas concretos, nomeadamente por parte dos setores agroalimentar e agroflorestal. E no que toca à investigação em solos, o CESAM encontra-se numa posição de liderança, não só ao nível da inter- e trans-disciplinariedade que o caracterizam, mas também pela qualidade e aplicabilidade dos resultados que aqui são gerados. E aproveito a deixar o convite a estes setores: procurem o CESAM, procurem os nossos serviços, porque temos todo o interesse em trabalhar convosco na resolução dos vossos problemas, e que são, ao fim e ao cabo, problemas nossos.

Comunicação_CESAM: ‘E quais as perguntas que procuram responder no vosso laboratório e que estão relacionadas com esta temática?’

Ana Bastos: A nossa investigação centra-se no estudo e aplicação sustentável de biocarvão (produto da pirólise de biomassa) a solos vulneráveis, para a melhoria e restauro de algumas funções específicas, sem no entanto, comprometer outras. E daí ter referido “sustentável”, e que obviamente, pressupõe muito trabalho de bastidores, a fim de identificar quais as combinações de fatores que garantem esse compromisso. Ora, e que funções do solo são essas que pretendemos optimizar? De um modo geral, prendem-se com:

  • a capacidade de armazenar água (a que chamamos de função de “esponja” do solo), isto na perspetiva da melhoria da capacidade de adaptação do nosso ecossistema terrestre às alterações climáticas e combate à desertificação;
  • a capacidade de reter nutrientes, e que combinada à retenção de água, conduz a um aumento da taxa de crescimento das plantas e produtividade agrícola/florestal;
  • o sequestro de carbono, isto numa perspetiva de mitigação das alterações climáticas e redução da emissão de gases de efeito de estufa;
  • por fim, outra função essencial que se tem tornado um ponto fulcral do nosso trabalho (porque ainda há muito pouca investigação nesta temática fora do CESAM), tem a ver com a melhoria do habitat para polinizadores e macroinvertebrados do solo, considerando o papel fundamental que estas comunidades têm, nomeadamente ao nível da produção agrícola e das cadeias tróficas terrestres.

Claro está que trabalhamos sobretudo de forma interdisciplinar, e temos aqui algumas parcerias chave, nomeadamente com a Terraprima, o Instituto Superior Técnico (IST-ID), o Instituto Superior de Agronomia, o MED da Universidade de Évora, a Estação Vitivinícola da Bairrada (DRAPC) e a Universidade de Harper-Adams (Reino Unido). No entanto, mantemo-nos sempre abertos e interessados em estabelecer novas colaborações, dentro e fora da UA.

On the 5th of December, we will celebrate World Soil Day with a set of activities open to the public.

Complexo Pedagógico, Científico e Tecnológico| from 2 pm | no registration needed

To understand the importance of this date and the relevance of the research on this topic, we had an informal conversation with three of our researchers. The second researcher we met was Susana Loureiro (CESAM |Departamento de Biologia da Universidade de Aveiro).

The excerpts below are the result of this brief informal conversation, which took place in their laboratories. Video available here

Communication_CESAM: ‘How important are soils in our daily lives?

Susana Loureiro: One of the essential functions of the soil is to filter out all the chemical substances that end up in the soil. And they end up in the soil, from pesticides, agricultural fertilisers… sludge from wastewater treatment plants end up in the soil… all these components have chemical substances that can have high or low mobility, that is, travel through the vertical profile of the soils of a quickly, slowly or not at all and remain motionless.

And if they travel quickly through the soil profile, they also quickly reach the groundwater, which is the source of the water we drink and the water that goes to the rivers.

Communication_CESAM:‘And why do we need research on soils?’

Susana Loureiro: Our objective is to understand if the soils have any contaminants that will impact, for example, a river or a lake, or if it stops us from providing a service related to primary production.

In the agricultural component, for example, which is one of the essential services provided by soils, imagine that a pesticide is sprayed and it rains heavily that day, and this causes runoff into a stream that is in an adjacent location. Automatically, everything you apply will flow into the river. Currently, our soils are saturated many times with nitrates and phosphates due to the intense application and also with some chemical compounds that are persistent in the soils.
What we do here is simulate this runoff into the rivers through a mixture that we make of water with soil, which is then agitated, centrifuged, extracted and tested with living organisms – freshwater aquatic organisms. And even in ‘blind’ samples (which we don’t know their chemical composition), these organisms will give us clues about the health of that soil.

In addition to several projects currently underway, we have a partnership with a company called Entogreen, a company dedicated to the production of insects and which has an environmental circularity component. The insects feed on waste, whether plant or waste that cannot be disposed of in an environmentally sustainable way, for example, olive pomace from olive oil production – which is a waste that doesn’t have an effective treatment because it has a very complex and toxic matrix.
These and other residues, such as plant residues that come from supermarkets, are given to the insects, and they process them; that is, they eat them, and their waste, together with the seedlings of the insect larvae, are pelleted and form a very good for soils.

Another component that we are also working on is more oriented towards environmental pollution, which is also linked to the soil ecosystem. There are several European and world projects that study and shape how we are going to be in a few years and the future is not very bright. We are losing a lot of soil biodiversity, which is very important for the normal and natural recycling that soils do of organic matter, and nutrients…
We try to help with monitoring tools; that is, we don’t do remediation processes, we don’t do the waste treatment. What we do is verify the effectiveness of the treatment because chemically analysing a matrix may not be enough because some specific compound may ‘fail’. But we use living beings (earthworms) that are capable of indicating whether or not there is something that is not right in these soil samples.

November 25th (Friday) | 12:30 pm and 1:30 pm | lecture theatre 9.1.1 (DEMaC) | No registration needed.

This edition of ‘Ocean Break’, a CESAM’s seminar in marine science, will take place on November 25th (Friday), researcher Selia Diaz will address the types of cancers that affect bivalves and their ecological implications.

Bivalves are a great source of food and an important economic resource in coastal regions. Mass mortalities in bivalve sandbeds are frequently associated with diseases, including cancer. Cancer is caused by mutations that alter the cell cycle. However, the causal agents can be diverse and according to these also their ecological implications. Currently, bivalves cancers have been associated with contamination, caused by viruses, and even with immortal cancer cells that are transmitted from one individual to another.

The connectivity of the oceans and the simple immune system of bivalves provide a new model for the study of these diseases.

Photo by: Selia Diaz

Content available in portuguese only

The RTP2’s “Biosphere” show highlighted the work of researchers Alberto Abreu, Ana Cristina Esteves, Artur Alves and João Pinto da Costa, who are dedicated to studying marine fungi in themes ranging from their diversity to their application biotechnology.

 Alberto Abreu, Ana Cristina Esteves, and Artur Alves are researchers at CESAM (Center for Environmental and Sea Studies at the University of Aveiro) and the Department of Biology. João Pinto da Costa is a researcher at CESAM and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Aveiro.

For more information, see here.

The documentaries “Life Lines – Architecture for wildlife” and “ECOMARE – Research and Rescue of marine species” received the 1st and 2nd prizes, respectively, in the “Environment & Ecology” category at the Art&TuR Festival 2022.

Joaquim Pedro Ferreira, a member of CESAM and co-author of these documentaries, emphasises that “these awards, like other previous ones, are the recognition of a bet won by CESAM in the audiovisual area. The idea is to include the scientific theme, through research work, in the audiovisual narrative.”

 For more information, click here

CESAM PhD students João Duarte and Sandra Hilário, both from the Department of Biology, were awarded at the Microbiology 2022 congress.

João Duarte received the award for Best short presentation in the panel food microbiology with the theme “Application of bacteriophages during the decontamination process of bivalves: preliminary studies”. In turn, Sandra Hilário received an honourable mention, for her ability to communicate science, in the environmental microbiology panel with the topic “Sequencing and genome analysis of two pathogenic fungi for blueberry cultivation”.

Microbiologia22, organised by the Portuguese Society of Microbiology, was the first congress of microbiology in Portuguese language, with the participation of 75 young microbiologists, developing their work in Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Spain and Finland.

On 16 October, the National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge (INSA), in collaboration with CESAM, participated in the International Science Festival (FIC.A), in Oeiras.

Among several activities, an animation video was presented on the theme “Digestion in a test tube”, aiming to show how we study human digestion in the laboratory.

See the video: HERE

A paper on the global status of ladybugs, published in the journal Conservation Biology, reveals the threats they face and presents a roadmap for their conservation. Their global decline is thought to be related to human activities, and aspects of the ecology of many of the species in this family are still poorly understood. The research had the collaboration of two CESAM researchers, Olga Ameixa and Ana Lillebo.

More details: Universidade de Aveiro (ua.pt)

The CESAM researcher won the FLAD Science Award Atlantic, with 300 M€ to study parasitic diseases in marine ecosystems.

In this third edition of the FLAD Science Award Atlantic, the jury considered the project “UNTIE – UNravelling the role of emerging parasitic diseases in the structure and function of coastal communiTIes and ecosystems” very relevant from the scientific point of view and of great interest to Portugal, since some of the molluscs and bivalves to be studied represent one of the main export sectors.

The project is in partnership with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center of the Smithsonian Institution in the United States.

According to FLAD, the work to be developed by the researcher from the CESAM & Department of Biology of the University of Aveiro will focus on the impact of trematode parasites that infect marine invertebrates, especially bivalves of high ecological and economic importance, using experiments in Chesapeake Bay in the United States and in the Ria de Aveiro.

More details: https://www.flad.pt/luisa-magalhaes-e-a-vencedora-do-flad-science-award-atlantic-2022/