Ivo Costa

Currently, my research interests are related to the behavioral mechanisms underlying the movements of marine predators (e.g. sharks), mainly focusing on the effect of prey distribution and environmental features on their foraging patterns. During my PhD I will address these issues by linking fine-scale swimming strategies (and associated energy expenditure), of ectothermic blues sharks with in situ prey abundance and environmental parameters to understand how different stimulus (predator-prey interactions, dissolved oxygen (DO), temperature) influence foraging decisions. Additionally, I will also look to how temperature influences their swimming performance. This is particularly important since the metabolic performance of individuals can be used to predict their geographical range. With this information, I could better determine the impact of fishing exploitation, climate warming, and deoxygenation scenarios in the future sustainability of already threatened shark populations.