Dr. Bruno M. Carreira

Leader of the Freshwater and Invasion Biology Research Group, CE3C – Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon

Focus regions: Palearctic

Bruno M. Carreira is the Leader of the Freshwater and Invasion Biology Research Group at CE3C – Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, University of Lisbon. His research investigates how temperature reshapes the nutritional ecology, life-history, and trophic interactions of freshwater ectotherms. Combining experimental approaches with field-based research along natural environmental gradients imposed by altitude and latitude, he examines how trophic responses at the individual-level scale across biological levels of organization to rewire species interactions and restructure ecological networks. Using freshwaters as model systems, his work aims to improve the understanding of how ectotherms respond and adapt to environmental change and to identify the ecological mechanisms that shape their vulnerability under ongoing climate warming.

Organization·ORCID·ResearchGate

Contributions

From the journals

Temperature constrains diet-induced plasticity in the life-history of an aquatic vertebrate

Bento, S., Deeks, E., Martelo, J., Magalhães, M. F., Segurado, P., Nascimento, S., Sousa, P. P., Caramelo, J., Vilas Boas, J., Laurila, A., Svanbäck, R., Carreira, V. D., Kratina, P., Rebelo, R., & Carreira, B. M. · Scientific Reports · June 2026

An experimental study investigating how diet influences the effects of temperature on the life-history of the spiny toad (Bufo spinosus). Warming accelerated larval development and growth while reducing body mass and body condition. Tadpoles fed selectively and assimilated proportionally fewer animal-based resources at warmer temperatures. This behavioural flexibility maintained body length but only partially compensated for the detrimental effects of warming, while shifting body composition by increasing tissue C:N ratio. The nutritional advantages of an animal-based diet observed at low temperature largely disappeared under warmer conditions, demonstrating that increasing temperature constrained diet-induced plasticity across multiple life-history traits. These findings provide experimental evidence that warming canalises life-history trajectories by limiting the capacity of diet to reshape the phenotypic architecture of a vertebrate ectotherm. They suggest that selective feeding can buffer warming effects only within a limited thermal window, beyond which amphibians and other ectotherms may become increasingly vulnerable to climate warming.

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