Marta graduated with a BSc in Zoology in 1998 from the University of La Laguna, in the Canary Islands, Spain. She then worked as an environmental consultant for the EU, in a project called ‘Cabo Verde Natura 2000’ in the West African country of Cabo Verde.

In 2002 Marta moved to Cape Town to do her Masters in Conservation Biology at the Fitz. Her thesis, supervised by Timm Hoffman from the Plant Conservation Unit (UCT), looked at the impact of harvesting buchu (an endemic plant) in the wild and provided recommendations for managing the resource.

Marta is now studying towards a PhD under the supervision of Peter Ryan from the FitzPatrick Institute, Les Underhill from the Animal Demographic Unit (ADU), Rob Crawford from MCM and Rauri Bowie from the University of California at Berkeley. Her dissertation is titled: Population dynamics of Great White Pelicans in southern Africa - causative factors and influence on other seabirds. The main objectives involve describing the mechanisms behind the sharp increase of the local pelican population and analysing the impact of pelican predation on breeding seabirds. She is coordinating a management intervention on the West Coast islands in collaboration with SANParks, aimed at reducing pelican pressure on seabird recruitment. She has also organised quarterly pelican surveys in coordination with volunteers from bird clubs and an environmental organization that flies for conservation, The Bateleurs, and spent the first half of 2008 at UC Berkeley investigating the level of gene flow among the different southern African pelican populations using molecular tools.

Thesis

Food supplementation, population growth and impacts of Great White Pelicans on breeding seabirds (Supervisors: Les Underhill, Peter Ryan, Rob Crawford & Rauri Bowie)

Publications

2010

Mwema, M.M., de Ponte Machado, M. & Ryan, P.G. 2010. Breeding seabirds at Dassen Island, South Africa: chances of surviving great white pelican predation. Endangered Species Research 9:125-131.

2009

De Ponte Machado. M., Feldheim, K.A., Sellas, A.B., Bowie, R.C.K. 2009. Development and characterization of microsatellite loci from the Great White Pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus) and widespread application to other members of the Pelecanidae. Conservation Genetics 10: 1033-1036.

2007

De Ponte Machado, M. 2007. Is predation on seabirds a new foraging behaviour for Great White Pelicans? History, foraging strategies and prey defensive responses. In: Kirkman SP (ed.) Final Report of the BCLME (Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem) Project on Top Predators as Biological Indicators of Ecosystem Change in the BCLME. Avian Demography Unit, Cape Town.

Assunção, P., De Ponte Machado, M., Ramírez, A.S., Rosales, R.S., Antunes, N.T., Poveda, C., De la Fe, C., Poveda, J.B. 2007. Prevalence of Pathogens in Great White Pelicans (Pelecanus onocrotalus) from the Western Cape, South Africa. Journal Applied Animal Research 32: 29-32.

2006

Musangu, M., De Ponte Machado, M., Ryan, P.G. (submitted). Breeding seabirds at Dassen Island, South Africa: can they survive Great White Pelican predation? Endangered Species Research.

2004

De Ponte Machado, M. & Hofmeyr, J. 2004. Great White Pelicans Pelecanus onocrotalus: waterbirds or farm birds? Bird Numbers 13(1): 11.

Donald, P.F., Taylor, R., De Ponte Machado, M., Pitta Groz, M.J., Wells, C.E., Marlow, T. & Hille, S.M. 2004. Status of the Cape Verde Cane Warbler Acrocephalus brevipennis on São Nicolau, with notes on song, breeding behaviour and threats. Malimbus 26: 34-37.

2003

Donald, P., Ponte Machado, M., Pitta Groz, M.J. & Taylor, R. 2003. Status, ecology, behaviour and conservation of Razo Lark Alauda razae. Bird Conservation International 13: 13-28.