Biotox Lab

25/06/2026

"Quais os conceitos-chave para enfrentar os atuais desafios marinhos e costeiros?" é o tema central da Escola de Verão redeMAR ULisboa 2026, que terá lugar entre os dias 13 e 17 de julho de 2026.

03/06/2026

🌊 We’ve signed the Manifesto de Vila Nova de Milfontes — and I believe every marine scientist in Portugal should too.

Last month, researchers, civil society organisations, coastal communities and businesses gathered in Vila Nova de Milfontes for the IV Festival das Florestas Marinhas. What came out of it was more than a meeting: it was a collective declaration of urgency.

Portugal’s marine forests — seagrass meadows, kelp and macroalgae forests, coral and sponge gardens, biogenic reefs — are degrading. Often silently. Often without the monitoring systems needed to even measure the scale of the loss. These are not peripheral habitats. They are the nurseries of our fisheries, the buffers of our coastlines, the filters of our water, the carbon stores of our ocean.

The Manifesto calls for six concrete steps: formal recognition of marine forests as strategic national infrastructure; a National Strategy for Marine Ecosystems to 2040 with measurable targets; effective protection of coastal and oceanic habitats; a national long-term monitoring and mapping programme; ocean literacy investment; and integration of sustainable blue bioeconomy models.

None of this is radical. All of it is urgent.

The evidence base for action exists. What has been lacking is political will and structural commitment. This Manifesto — signed by nearly 80 researchers, institutions, organisations and citizens, and submitted to the President of the Republic, the Government and Parliament — is an attempt to change that.

If you work in marine science, conservation, policy or ocean stewardship in Portugal, we encourage you to read and sign it.

🔗 https://filesender.fccn.pt/?s=download&token=f59bcd46-a466-40eb-82f0-7cbe6f20b87b



Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa
MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente
ARNET - Aquatic Research Network

03/06/2026

🏆 Two coordinators. Two rankings. One shared mission.

The 2026 Research.com rankings in Ecology & Evolution are out — and BIOTOX is proud to celebrate the recognition of both its scientific leaders:

🟢 Bernardo Duarte — #38 in Portugal · #5,230 worldwide
🟢 Vanessa Fonseca — #75 in Portugal · #7,455 worldwide

Both simultaneously ranked in the national top 80. That doesn’t happen without years of rigorous, impactful science.

Since co-founding BIOTOX in 2019 at MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente/ ARNET - Aquatic Research Network at the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Bernardo and Vanessa have built a research group that tackles some of the most pressing questions in marine environmental science: how do emerging contaminants — from pharmaceuticals to industrial chemicals — affect estuarine organisms and food webs? How do we develop reliable biomarkers of sublethal stress? How do we ensure that seafood traceability and sustainability are grounded in real science? What can marine microbes tell us in a One-Health perspective?

The answers live in the work. The rankings confirm the reach.

Congratulations to the team, and thank you to every student, postdoc and collaborator who has made BIOTOX what it is today.

🔗 https://research.com/u/bernardo-duarte
🔗 https://research.com/u/vanessa-f-fonseca

28/05/2026

🦈 New paper out in Marine Pollution Bulletin!

We just published the first baseline study on trace element contamination in juvenile sharks from the first multispecies shark nursery ever described in Atlantic Africa — Sal Rei Bay, Boa Vista Island, Cabo Verde.

Shark nurseries are critical habitats. They are the sheltered coastal zones where juvenile sharks develop before venturing into the open ocean. Protecting them requires understanding what they are exposed to — and that starts with establishing baseline reference values.

In this study, we measured 12 trace elements (including Al, Zn, As, Cu, Hg and Pb) in the blood plasma of four juvenile shark species — Carcharhinus limbatus, Paragaleus pectoralis, Rhizoprionodon acutus, and Sphyrna lewini (the endangered scalloped hammerhead) — alongside seawater and sediment samples from eight sites across the bay.

Here's what we found:
🔬 Overall contamination is low — good news for this relatively pristine Atlantic nursery area
⚠️ Hotspots near the fishing port — slightly elevated Cd, Co and Hg in water and sediments near port facilities warrant targeted management action, including runoff mitigation and effluent treatment
🦈 Species-specific elemental signatures were evident — elevated Al and Cu in C. limbatus, Zn in S. lewini, and As in R. acutus and P. pectoralis — highlighting the importance of species-resolved biomonitoring
🌍 A framework for the future — these baseline values are now essential reference data for long-term biomonitoring and conservation of Cabo Verdean shark nursery habitats
This work is a first step. Continued monitoring, tissue-specific analyses, and assessment of emerging contaminants like PFAS will be critical to safeguard this unique and newly discovered ecosystem.

📄 Ramalho, M., Caldeira-Santos, C., Court, M.,, Varela, J., Duarte, B. and Rosa, R., 2026. Baseline elemental profile of juvenile sharks from a multispecies nursery area off West Africa (Sal Rei Bay, Boa Vista Island, Cabo Verde). Marine Pollution Bulletin 231, 119934 (DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2026.119934).

Link: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1nAZ8,asiHWIm



Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa
MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente
ARNET - Aquatic Research Network

22/05/2026

🌊 New paper out in Ecosystem Services — and it tackles a fundamental question: which marine and coastal habitats deliver which ecosystem services, and where are the gaps?

"A global synthesis of ecosystem services records and their associations with marine and coastal habitats" presents the most comprehensive systematic review to date on marine ecosystem services, following the CICES classification framework.

Key findings from 3316 records across 139 countries:

📍 Mangroves, seagrasses and coral reefs dominate the literature — associated with nearly all service classes (17–19 out of 21). These ecosystems are not only ecologically critical; they are also the best evidenced for policy and valuation.

⚠️ Pelagic habitats, kelp forests, continental shelves, intertidal mudflats, deep sea and sea ice remain severely underrepresented — linked to far fewer services and studied far less.

🌍 Geographic blind spots are stark: Africa, South America and Oceania are systematically underrepresented, despite harbouring globally significant marine ecosystems.

🔬 Service-level gaps persist too: biological control, energy provision and sediment regulation remain poorly studied — and ecosystem disservices are almost entirely absent from the record.

Research on marine ecosystem services has surged since 2008, but the field is still shaped by the habitats and regions that are easiest to access and fund — not by ecological importance or policy urgency. Closing these gaps is not optional: it is a precondition for evidence-based marine conservation and management.

🔗 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041626000495



Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa
MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente
ARNET - Aquatic Research Network
CBMA - Centro de Biologia Molecular e Ambiental
BIOPOLIS-Cibio
Ciimar
Instituto Español de Oceanografía - IEO
DTU Aqua
University of St Andrews
IPMA
INRAE

19/05/2026

🧊 Thrilled to share that ARCBIO has been approved for Transnational Access funding through POLARIN — and we are heading to the Arctic!

ARCBIO — Assessment of Emergent Pollutants in Arctic Primary Producers: Integrated Chemical, Functional and Metagenomic Early-Warning Indicators — will tackle one of the most pressing gaps in polar ecotoxicology: the near-complete absence of data on how contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) affect the base of Arctic food webs.

In late June–early July 2027, our team will sail aboard the MV Le Commandant Charcot (Ponant) from Longyearbyen across the Greenland Sea and along the Northeast Greenland coast, collecting marine phytoplankton, terrestrial lichens, seawater, and air microbiome samples along the way.

The science? A first-of-its-kind dual-realm, multi-endpoint framework combining:
🔬 Chemical quantification of POPs and CEACs in biota and water
💡 PAM fluorometry as a high-throughput tool for early-warning stress indicator in polar phytoplankton and lichens
🧬 4th-generation Nanopore metagenomics for taxonomic, functional, and resistome profiling

Phytoplankton and lichens - two sentinel systems at analogous trophic levels, one in the ocean, one on land - will be assessed in parallel to reveal cross-realm contaminant pathways and atmosphere–ocean–land connectivity.

This work is a team effort bringing together researchers from MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente/ARNET - Aquatic Research Network (Bernardo Duarte, Vanessa Fonseca), Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes - ce3c (Ricardo Dias), and IGOT-ULisboa/CEG/Laboratório Associado Terra (Teresa Cabrita, Paula Matos), together with GAIKER Technology Centre (Alberto Katsumiti).

All results will be delivered open-access, contributing to AMAP, EU-PolarNet 2, and the EU Zero Pollution Action Plan. The Arctic doesn't get to stay remote from our pollution - but it does deserve our best science.

Thank you to POLARIN and the EU for making this possible. 🙏

🔗 https://eu-polarin.eu



Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa
MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente
ARNET - Aquatic Research Network
Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes - ce3c
IGOT-ULisboa
Laboratório Associado Terra

15/05/2026

🌊💊 Do champô que usas ao medicamento que tomas: tudo o que deitas fora pode acabar no oceano. 🌊

A estes compostos chamamos contaminantes emergentes. São substâncias como microplásticos, resíduos de medicamentos e compostos industriais cujos impactos nos ecossistemas marinhos e na saúde humana ainda não são totalmente conhecidos, e a maioria ainda não tem regulamentação específica.

É exatamente isto que o projeto -BLUE, financiado pela União Europeia através do programa Horizon Europe, está a investigar. Mais de 100 investigadores de 18 instituições de 11 países europeus trabalham em conjunto para perceber os níveis, a distribuição e os efeitos destes contaminantes no Mediterrâneo, no Atlântico e no Oceano Ártico. Nos dois primeiros anos do projeto, foram recolhidas mais de 1 500 amostras, incluindo água do mar, sedimentos, microplásticos e amostras para estudos de biodiversidade, a profundidades que chegam aos 4 500 metros.

Os resultados vão alimentar uma plataforma digital de acesso aberto, concebida para apoiar a ciência europeia e contribuir para políticas de protecção dos oceanos e de gestão sustentável da água.

🌍 Esta iniciativa enquadra-se na missão do ARNET: ligar ciência, política e acção, transformando investigação em ferramentas que protegem a biodiversidade e apoiam políticas públicas eficazes.

💶 Financiamento: União Europeia - Programa Horizon Europe (Grant Agreement n.º 101134929)

Partilha! 🔁

🔗 https://one-blue.eu

-BLUE

📍 .Center 📍 .ualg 📍 .uminho

12/05/2026

🌊 New paper out in Marine Pollution Bulletin!

Our latest study tackles an often-overlooked threat to ocean health: pharmaceutical pollution.

Psychoactive drugs like risperidone — a widely prescribed antipsychotic — are increasingly detected in aquatic environments through wastewater discharge. But what happens when marine microalgae are exposed to them?

We exposed the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum to environmentally relevant concentrations of risperidone and found that above 30 μg/L, the drug shuts down photosystem II — the cellular machinery that allows algae to convert sunlight into energy. This was accompanied by DNA damage, lipid peroxidation, and activation of oxidative stress enzymes (CAT and SOD).

Diatoms are responsible for ~20% of global oxygen production and form the base of marine food webs. Understanding how pharmaceutical pollutants affect them is not just an ecotoxicology question — it's an ocean health question.

This work also identifies a suite of robust bio-optical and biochemical biomarkers that can be used in future pharmaceutical pollution screenings.

📄 Cruz de Carvalho R., Raspadori F., Genovese R., Bruchier X., Fonseca V., Duarte B. (2026). The effect of risperidone on the growth and photosynthetic efficiency of the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum. Marine Pollution Bulletin.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2026.119537



Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa
MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente
ARNET - Aquatic Research Network

29/04/2026

🐟 "Is eating salmon dangerous?" — a question that reached newsrooms and science in equal measure.

A new Swedish study showed that co***ne entering rivers via wastewater alters the behaviour of salmon. The question landed with the press — and with Vanessa Fonseca (Biotox Lab Co-PI), researcher at MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente (ARNET - Aquatic Research Network) and Professor at the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa.

Her response is a masterclass in science communication: no dramatisation, no oversimplification — just rigour and context.

Yes, Portugal has evidence of co***ne in the Tagus and Douro estuaries. Yes, neuroactive pharmaceuticals accumulate in fish from our coastal waters. But no, there is no reason for alarm about eating salmon — the direct risk to consumers is very low based on current evidence.

What is genuinely concerning is the ecological impact: fish whose behaviour is altered may migrate, reproduce and survive differently. And co***ne is just the tip of the iceberg — antidepressants, antibiotics and other compounds complete a picture of aquatic chemical pollution that urgently needs systematic monitoring.

As Vanessa puts it: keeping ecosystems healthy is also keeping ourselves healthy.

Well done, Vanessa — for the work and for the way you communicate it. 👏

🔗 https://versa.iol.pt/salmao/cocaina/estudo-alerta-para-efeitos-da-cocaina-no-salmao-e-quem-come-o-peixe-a-ciencia-responde-sem-duvidas/20260428/69f08b7cd34e28842c836ac5



Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa
MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente
ARNET - Aquatic Research Network

Foi publicado um novo estudo que alerta para os efeitos que os resíduos de co***na que entram por águas residuais podem ter nos salmões. É uma preocupação real? E pode afetar quem come este tipo de peixe? Esclarecemos as dúvidas com Vanessa Fonseca, Professora de Ciências ULisboa e investig...

26/04/2026

Today marks exactly 40 years since reactor nº4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded in the early hours of April 26, 1986. Within days, the radioactive plume had crossed most of Europe — reaching Scandinavia by April 28, Central Europe by early May, and the Iberian Peninsula by mid-May. The cloud left an invisible but permanent signature across the continent's ecosystems.

One of the most remarkable legacies of that catastrophe is scientific, and it has nothing to do with the exclusion zone. The Chernobyl accident deposited a sharp, continent-wide pulse of caesium-137 (¹³⁷Cs) into soils, wetlands, and estuarine sediments — effectively tagging the year 1986 in the geological record with a precision that few natural tracers can match.

In work we published back in 2013, we exploited exactly this — alongside the earlier 1963 ¹³⁷Cs peak from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing — to date sediment cores from two salt marshes in the Tagus estuary. Those two radiometric markers, separated by 23 years, allowed us to calculate sediment accretion rates for distinct time intervals and link them directly to sea level rise data from the Cascais tidal gauge (1880–2001). The result was a clear inverse relationship: periods of higher mean sea level corresponded to lower accretion rates, pointing to erosion as the dominant marsh response during high tidal flooding — yet both marshes still maintained a positive net balance against rising seas.

Chernobyl's ¹³⁷Cs pulse, carried by wind from Ukraine to Portugal, ended up buried quietly in the mud of a Tagus salt marsh, telling us something important about the resilience — and the limits — of one of Europe's most productive coastal ecosystems in the face of sea level rise.

Full paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2013.05.015



Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa
MARE - Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente
ARNET - Aquatic Research Network