Barbara Horta e Costa

Dr. Barbara Horta e Costa has been working on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) her entire career. She studied Marine Biology and Fisheries at the University of the Algarve, and she completed a Master’s thesis entitled: “Distribution and Abundance of commercial fish in and around the Marine Protected Area (MPA) of Punta Frances, Cuba” at the same institution. She then completed a PhD in MPA effectiveness entitled “The effect of conservation measures on the spatial and temporal variation of rocky fish assemblages in the Arrábida Marine Park, Portugal,” at Instituto Universitário in Lisbon, Portugal and University of California Santa Barbara in the United States. She has collaborated on a Typology of Partially Protected Areas (PPAs) and lead a study called “FEVER – fisheries (socio-ecological) vulnerability to climate change.” Since 2015 she has been a postdoc researcher of CCMAR running a study entitled “Linking the ecological and evolutionary roles of MPAs: implications for management.” It includes an investigation of spawning aggregations in the Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina through fishers’ perceptions and ecological surveys. She is also investigating the effects of protection vs. fishing selectivity on fish movement. Dr. Horta e Costa teaches ‘Ocean Governance and Marine Protected Areas’ in the Masters of Marine Biology and Conservation at ISPA – Instituto Universitário. She continues to collaborate on a variety of projects on MPAs, including consulting for WWF and Fundação Oceano Azul on Portuguese MPAs.