School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences College of Science

Research Overview

I am a sustainability scientist motivated by the challenge of providing energy, water, and food to a growing human population in a fast-changing world. Having a background in aquatic sciences, my work revolves around balancing benefits and socioenvironmental costs of water infrastructure and managed aquatic ecosystems. I am especially interested in hydropower and aquaculture -- two sectors that are expanding globally. Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change are common threads in my research. I focus on achieving synthetic perspectives through collaborative networks that combine a variety of environmental science disciplines, including biogeochemistry, ecosystem ecology, computational sustainability and natural resource economics. My work is global in scope, and I have particular interest in biologically and culturally diverse regions such as the Amazon.

Publications

• Almeida RM, Fleischmann AS, Angarita A, Brêda JPF, Cardoso DS, Collischonn W, Forsberg B, García-Villacorta R, Hamilton SK, Paiva R, Poff NL, Sethi SA, Shi Q, Gomes CP, Flecker AS. Climate change may impair electricity generation and economic viability of future Amazon hydropower. Global Environmental Change, in press.
• Santos JA, Quadra GR, Almeida RM, Soranço L, Lobo H, Rocha VN, Bialetzki A, Roland F, Reis Jr JL, Barros N. Sublethal effects of environmental concentrations of caffeine on a Neotropical freshwater fish. Ecotoxicology, in press
• Paranaíba JR, Barros N, Almeida RM, Linkhorst A, Mendonça R, Vale R, Roland F, Sobek S. (2021). Hotspots of diffusive CO2 and CH4 emission from reservoirs shift through time. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 126, e2020JG006014 https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JG006014
• Almeida RM, Hamilton SK, Rosi EJ, Barros N, Doria C, Fleischmann AS, Flecker AS, Reisinger AJ, Roland F. (2020). Hydropeaking operations of two run-of-river mega-dams alter downstream hydrology of the largest Amazon tributary. Frontiers in Environmental Science 8:120 https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2020.00120
• Kosten S, Almeida RM, Barbosa I, Mendonça R, Muzitano IS, Oliveira-Junior ES, Vroom RJE, Wang H, Barros N. (2020). Better assessments of greenhouse gas emissions from global fish ponds needed to adequately evaluate aquaculture footprint. Science of the Total Environment 141247 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141247
• Paschoalini M, Almeida RM, Trujillo J, Melo-Santos G, Marmontel M, Pavanato HJ, Guerra FM, Ristau N, Zerbini AN. (2020). On the brink of isolation: Population estimates of the Araguaian river dolphin in a human-impacted region in Brazil. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0231224 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231224
• Paranaíba JR, Quadra G, Josué P, Almeida RM, Mendonça R, Cardoso SJ, Silva J, Kosten S, Campos JM, Almeida J, Araujo RL, Roland F, Barros N. (2020). Sediment drying-rewetting cycles enhance greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient and trace element release, and promote water cytogenotoxicity. PLoS ONE 15(4): e023108 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231082
• Amado, AM, Almeida RM, Cardoso SJ, Santos JA, Camargo AFM. (2020). Freshwater sustainability and aquatic ecology in a fast-changing world. Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia 32:e100 https://doi.org/10.1590/S2179-975X10020020
• Junger, PC, Almeida RM, Mendonça R, Farjalla VF, Melo RCN, Roland F, Barros N. (2020). Not all viruses in nature are human enemies: a perspective on aquatic virus ecology in Brazil. Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia 32:e105 https://doi.org/10.1590/S2179-975X3720
• Almeida RM, Shi Q, Gomes-Selman JM, Angarita H, Barros N, Forsberg BR, García-Villacorta R, Hamilton SK, Melack JM, Montoya M, Perez G, Sethi SA, Gomes CP, Flecker AS. (2019). Reducing greenhouse gas emissions of Amazon hydropower with strategic dam planning. Nature Communications 10:4281 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12179-5
• Almeida RM, Arantes Jr JD, Barros N, Boemer G, Gripp A, Hamilton SK, Huszar VLM, Junger PC, Lima M, Pacheco F, Pires D, Reisinger AJ, Rosi E, Roland F. (2019). Limnological effects of a large Amazonian run-of-river dam on the main river and drowned tributary valleys. Scientific Reports 9:16846 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-53060-1
• Almeida RM, Paranaíba JR, Barbosa I, Sobek S, Kosten S, Linkhorst A, Mendonça R, Quadra G, Roland F, Barros N. (2019). Carbon dioxide emission from drawdown areas of a Brazilian reservoir is linked to surrounding land cover. Aquatic Sciences 81:68 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-019-0665-9
• Feitosa IB, Huszar VLM, Domingues CD, Appel E, Paranhos R, Almeida RM, Branco CWC, Bastos WR, Sarmento H. (2019). Plankton community interactions in an Amazonian floodplain lake, from bacteria to zooplankton. Hydrobiologia 831:55 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-018-3855-x
• Quadra G, Roland F, Barros N, Malm O, Lino AS, Azevedo GM, Thomaz JR, Andrade-Vieira LF, Praça-Fontes MM, Almeida RM, Mendonça RF, Cardoso SJ, Guida YS, Campos JMS. (2019). Far-reaching cytogenotoxic effects of mine waste from the Fundão dam disaster in Brazil. Chemosphere 215:753-757 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2018.10.104
• Almeida RM, Han BA, Reisinger AJ, Kagemann C, Rosi E. (2018). High mortality in aquatic predators of mosquito larvae caused by exposure to insect repellent. Biology Letters 14(10):20180526 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2018.0526
• Paranaíba JR, Barros N, Mendonça R, Linkhorst A, Isidorova A, Roland F, Almeida RM, Sobek S. (2018). Spatially resolved measurements of CO2 and CH4 concentration and gas-exchange velocity highly influence carbon-emission estimates of reservoirs. Environmental Science & Technology 52(2):607-615 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b05138
• Almeida RM, Pacheco FS, Barros N, Rosi E, Roland F. (2017). Extreme floods increase CO2 outgassing from a large Amazonian river. Limnology & Oceanography 62(3):989-999 https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.10480
• Almeida RM, Lovejoy T, Roland F. (2016). Brazil’s Amazon conservation in peril. Science 353(6296):228-229 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aag2510

Present Courses

• ENVR 1401 – Introduction to Environmental Science I