Seascape around the main island of the Wildlife Refuge of Alcatrazes

• Grant number: 23/02863-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: November 01, 2023
• End date: March 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Guilherme Henrique Pereira Filho
• Grantee: Mônica Andrade da Silva
• Host Institution: Instituto do Mar (IMar). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Baixada Santista. Santos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Landscape ecology seeks to understand how different patterns of spatial organization of landscape units influence ecological processes. Therefore, the structure of the landscape must be identified and quantified before the interactions between landscape patterns and ecological processes can be understood. Seascape ecology emerged from the understanding that the study of the dynamics of landscape units could be applicable in a variety of marine environments. However, the difficulty in accessing and mapping the seafloor was a limiting factor for sampling seascape patterns. Despite technological advances, recent discoveries of marine habitats off the Brazilian coast show that we still have little knowledge of the marine landscape. The description of these habitats is fundamental for the development of marine management and conservation policies, providing subsidies for the creation and maintenance of marine protected areas. The Wildlife Refuge Arquipélago de Alcatrazes is a conservation unit that plays a fundamental role in maintaining biodiversity and replenishing fish stocks in the State of São Paulo. Despite its importance, the absence of a detailed spatial representation of the archipelago is noted, especially for marine habitats. Information available at the National Oceanographic Data Bank (BNDO), when interpolated, suggests a high concentration of sediment of carbonate origin (e.g., gravel) around the Alcatrazes Archipelago, which leads us to hypothesize that biogenic structures, similar to the coral reef recently described by the our research group in the Queimada Grande Island, also developed around the Alcatrazes Archipelago during the last 7,000 years (i.e., middle and late Holocene). Therefore, the aim of this study is to produce a map of marine habitats to describe the landscape in relation to bathymetry, relief and substrate, using sound mapping techniques and substrate characterization. In addition to the description, we will seek to understand how organisms respond to habitat changes and are distributed in this landscape, based on biological sampling data.