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Marcela M. Alvarenga

@marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social
172 followers 185 following 13 posts

PhD Candidate at CIBIO/BIOPOLIS, University of Porto Wildlife conservation • Evolution • Genomics • Museomics • Coloration Happy on the trail, behind the camera, or in the water 🥾📸🤿 #weasels #sharks #rays

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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
Shannon du Plessis, KruShan Foundation Co-Founder @krushanfoundation.org · 04/09/2026
African penguin Lucia arrived with a seal bite on her left shoulder. Once her body recovered, her high standards returned. In a dining ritual all her own, she insists on crushing each fish before deciding if it’s worthy of her palate. #birds 🦑 🌎 🌿 #NotBy2035 #penguins
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
Save Our Seas Foundation @saveourseas.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
A site long-forgotten, once surveyed in the 1960s off West Africa's Benin, has been rediscovered. A healthy reef teeming with marine life, with at least eight coral types and eight fish species, has formed a thriving ecosystem here. The site has been classified as a mesophotic coral ecosystem (MCE).
e360.yale.edu
Long Presumed Dead, a West African Reef Is Found Thriving
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
emerbeeologist 🦋 @emerythos.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
a sky full of sharks ⭐🦈🌊 I'm clearly not in time for shark week, but I've finished this huge shark illustration! I didn't expect it to be this big of a project, yet here we are. It was so much fun to draw these sillies & I hope you love them~ #SciArt #natureart #shark #elasmobranch
Starry underwater scene of a multitude of sharks, kelp, coral, and other marine creatures in a spiral pattern.

Sharks: basking, ocean white tip, sawfish, whale shark, white tip reef, black tip reef, lemon, wobbegong, epaulette, gulper shark, cookie cutter, short fin mako, thresher, greenland, goblin

Others: manta rays, spotted eagle rays, moon jellies, sea angels, seastars, sea horse, leafy sea dragon, sea nettle jellies, misc fish
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Marcela M. Alvarenga @marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
🤩🧬🐾
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
Inês Miranda @inesmiranda.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
The biggest work of my PhD was recently published in @commsbio.nature.com! We looked at the origin and maintenance of alternative winter colour morphs (white and brown) in European least weasels during their evolution. OA paper ➡️ doi.org/10.1038/s420... 1/6
doi.org
Balanced polymorphism underlies long-standing adaptation for seasonal camouflage in the least weasel - Communications Biology
In vitro functional assays link alternative MC1R alleles to least weasels’ camouflage in environments with different winter snow, and population genomics sheds light on their evolutionary origin and b...
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
Communications Biology @commsbio.nature.com · 16/06/2026
🟤⚪❄️This article featured on our homepage shows how the long-standing adaptation in least #weasel protein MC1R allows #camouflage in diverse environments www.nature.com/commsbio/ www.nature.com/articles/s42... @evochange.bsky.social @inesmiranda.bsky.social @meloferreiraj.bsky.social
A least weasel with winter-brown coat on a green grass-covered plateau
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Marcela M. Alvarenga @marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Our work was featured on IUCN SSN Shark News, highlighting our review of rapid DNA/eDNA tools for Chondrichthyes conservation worldwide, and our free eBook to help practitioners, students, and researchers understand and apply these tools @iucnshark.bsky.social 🦈 Read it here: bit.ly/SharkNews13
784f07501.flowpaper.com
IUCN SSC SSG | Shark News | Issue 13 | April 2026
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
Wildlife @worldwildlife.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Red Panda (Ailurus fulgens): Native to the Himalayas and South Western China, this mammal is about the size of a domestic cat and is mainly active from dusk to dawn. 🙂 It looks like its been a long week! #redpanda #nature #wildlife #bsky
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Rapid DNA/eDNA-Based ID Tools for Improved Chondrichthyan Monitoring and Management onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... "an accessible reference for time- and cost-effective genetic monitoring "
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Rapid DNA/eDNA‐Based ID Tools for Improved Chondrichthyan Monitoring and Management
Rapid DNA/eDNA-based ID tools, which detect specific genetic patterns without requiring sequencing, are essential for biodiversity and wildlife trade monitoring, particularly for species of…
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
Andrew D Thaler @drandrewthaler.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
New Otter just dropped. www.earth.com/news/scienti...
earth.com
Scientists confirm discovery of a new otter species
New scientific discovery: DNA reveals that the neotropical otter is not one, but two distinct species in Latin America.
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Marcela M. Alvarenga @marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
🚨 New paper in Molecular Ecology Resources! We compiled the most applied rapid DNA/eDNA-based ID tools & primers for #sharks and #rays 🦈 A practical guide to help scientists, managers & enforcement choose the right method for conservation action. Read here: doi.org/10.1111/1755... #OpenScience #eDNA
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
Rob Waterhouse @rmwaterhouse.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
2,133 publications covering 97,783 impacted and reference sites, creating an unparallelled dataset of 3,667 independent comparisons of #biodiversity impacts across all main organismal groups, habitats and the five most predominant human pressures www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The global human impact on biodiversity - Nature
Key measures of biodiversity were quantified and found to be affected by human pressures that shifted community composition and decreased local diversity across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecos...
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
spencer roberts 🦈 @unpopularscience.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
I will forever be haunted by this footage. Trawling has only been filmed underwater a few times in documentary history, and never with such clarity. What’s so heart-rending about these shots is watching how the animals don’t just get swept up — they swim for their lives. 🌎🦑🧪
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
Mongabay @mongabay.com · 04/05/2025
Accelerated Arctic warming is reshaping the polar environment, but focusing only on the impacts of long-term annual temperature rise can miss key consequences of shorter-lived, but extreme, weather shifts coming as a result of climate change.
news.mongabay.com
Winter warming and rain extreme events pose overlooked threat to Arctic life
It’s well established that the slow incremental “press” of rising temperatures is changing the Arctic landscape, threatening the survival of plants and animals adapted to this unique ecosystem. Less…
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
New paper! Social media for fisheries science and management professionals: How to use Bluesky and Instagram, and why you should. This is the *first* paper in the peer reviewed scientific literature to explain how Bluesky works and how to use it for #SciComm 🧪🦑🐠 academic.oup.com/fisheries/ad...
academic.oup.com
Social media for fisheries science and management professionals: How to use Bluesky and Instagram, and why you should
ABSTRACT. Social media tools have revolutionized how people communicate with one another. A 2018 paper in Fisheries summarized the use of Twitter, Facebook
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
EVOCHANGE lab @evochange.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Our research group uses genomic tools to study evolutionary responses to changes in climate in natural populations, including processes such as local adaptation, hybridization, speciation. Read more about our work & check out our blog ⬇ www.cibio.up.pt/en/groups/ge... evoluchange.wordpress.com
evoluchange.wordpress.com
EVOCHANGE
Genomics of Evolutionary Change - CIBIO-InBIO, U. Porto
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Marcela M. Alvarenga @marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
From participant to instructor -- returning to the Workshop on Genomics this year was an incredible experience! 🎉 Dive into my journey on the other side of the classroom and learn more about this amazing workshop. 🧬✨ 🔗 Read here: evoluchange.wordpress.com/2025/02/17/m... @evomics.bsky.social
evoluchange.wordpress.com
Meet us on the other side: returning to the Workshop on Genomics as instructors
After attending the Workshop on Genomics in 2023, we had the incredible opportunity to return in 2025 – this time as Teaching Assistants (TA’s)! Stepping from the participant side into the instruct…
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Marcela M. Alvarenga @marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
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Marcela M. Alvarenga @marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
One of the highlights of this workshop! 🤩
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Marcela M. Alvarenga @marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
Such a nice way to finish our first day! 😁
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
Workshops @evomics.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Introduction to the Workshop on Genomics 2025 presented by the awesome workshop director @josieparis.bsky.social 🙌🏽 #evomics2025 #bioinformatics #genomics
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Reposted by Marcela M. Alvarenga
Workshops @evomics.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
Team photo at the Town Square of Český Krumlov! Ready to start the Workshop on Genomics 2025! #evomics2025 #genomics #bioinformatics
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Marcela M. Alvarenga @marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
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Marcela M. Alvarenga @marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social · 27/03/2024
Guess what happened today? A government agent got in touch with me after reading my paper! See my work make a real difference in protecting species is what I've been aiming for as a conservationist. It might be just a simple e-mail, but it pumped me up to keep working hard!😊
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Marcela M. Alvarenga @marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social · 19/03/2024
Our paper in the Brazilian press! "Eight out of ten species of sharks and rays in national trade are threatened with extinction" abori.com.br/oceanografia... @ingridbunholi.bsky.social
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Marcela M. Alvarenga @marcelaalvarenga.bsky.social · 18/03/2024
Our new contribution to the conservation of biodiversity of sharks and rays is out to the world! ⚠️🧬🦈
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