Naíla Barbosa da Costa

Summary

Currently I’m a substitute professor at Université TÉLUQ in the department of science and technology. I am interested in microbial and aquatic ecology, evolution and genomics. I am fluent in English, French and Portuguese and I am engaged in science popularization and education in these three languages. I tell a bit of my story and previous research in this video.

Professional experience

2025-now Université TÉLUQ - Département Science et Technologie (Québec, Canada)

2023-2025 Institut national de la recherche scientifique - Eau Terre Environnement (INRS-ETE)

2022-2023 Lecturer at University of Montreal (Montreal, Canada)

2015 “Folha de São Paulo” Newspaper (São Paulo, Brazil)

Education

2016-2022 University of Montreal (UdeM), Canada

2016-2019 Groupe de Recherche Interuniversitaire en Limnologie (GRIL)

2013-2015 Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil

2008-2013 Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil

Publications

Peer-reviewed publications in the last 5 years (a full list is available online)

2025 Xu CC, Fugère V, Barbosa da Costa N, Beisner BE, Bell GA., Cristescu ME, Fussmann GF, Gonzalez A, Shapiro BJ and Barrett RD. Pre-exposure to stress reduces loss of community and genetic diversity following severe environmental disturbance. Current biology https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.01.037

2025 Loria A, Tournayre O, Hébert M-P, Barbosa da Costa N, Fugère V, Barrett RDH, Beisner BE, Bell G, Shapiro BJ, Gonzalez A, Cristescu ME. Estimating rapid diversity changes during acute herbicide contamination using environmental DNA. Environmental DNA https://doi.org/10.1002/edn3.70029

2024 Vieira da Silva Cruz F, Barbosa da Costa N, Juneau P. Non-pathogenic microbiome associated to aquatic plants and anthropogenic impacts on this interaction. Science of the Total Environment doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.174663

2023 Potvin M, Gauthier J, Langevin C, Mohit V, Barbosa da Costa N, Deschênes T, Pomerleau M, Kukavica-Ibrulj I, Verreault D, Comte J, Levesque RC. Rapid on-site detection of harmful algal blooms: real-time cyanobacteria identification using Oxford Nanopore sequencing. Frontiers in Microbiology doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1267652

2023 Monchamp M-E, Taranu ZE, Rebecca E. Garner, Rehill T, Morissette O, Iversen LL, Fugère V, Littlefair JE, Barbosa da Costa N, Desforges JE, Sánchez Schacht JR, Derry AM, Cooke SJ, Barrett RDH, Walsh DA, Ragoussis J, Albert M, Cristescu ME, Gregory-Eaves I. Prioritizing taxa for genetic reference database development to advance inland water conservation. Biological Conservation doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.109963

2022 Kraemer SA, Barbosa da Costa N, Olivia A, Huot Y, Walsh DA. A resistome survey across hundreds of freshwater bacterial communities reveals the impacts of veterinary and human antibiotics use. Frontiers in Microbiology doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.995418

2022 Barbosa da Costa N, Hébert M-P, Fugère V, Terrat Y, Fussmann G, Gonzalez A, Shapiro BJ. A glyphosate-based herbicide cross-selects for antibiotic resistance genes in bacterioplankton communities. mSystems doi: 10.1128/msystems.01482-21

2022 MacKeigan PW, Garner RE, Monchamp ME, Walsh DA, Onana VE, Kraemer SA, Pick FR, Beisner BE, Agbeti MD, Barbosa da Costa N, Shapiro BJ, Gregory-Eaves I. Comparing microscopy and DNA metabarcoding techniques for identifying cyanobacteria assemblages across hundreds of lakes. Harmful Algae doi: 10.1016/j.hal.2022.102187

2021 Barbosa da Costa N, Fugère V, Hébert M-P, Xu CCY, Barrett R, Beisner BE, Bell G, Yargeau V, Fussmann G, Shapiro BJ. Resistance, resilience, and functional redundancy of freshwater microbial communities facing multiple agricultural stressors in a mesocosm experiment. Molecular Ecology 30:4771-4788. doi: 10.1111/mec.16100

2021 Hébert M-P, Fugère V, Beisner B, Barbosa da Costa N, Barrett R, Bell G, Shapiro BJ, Yargeau V, Gonzalez A, Fussmann G. Widespread agrochemicals differentially affect zooplankton biomass and community structure. Ecological Applications 31(7):e02423. doi: 10.1002/eap.2423

Book chapter

2021 Oki Y, Nascimento IM, da Costa NB, Maia RA, Takahashi JA, Ferraz V, Correa Junior A, Wilson GW. Effectiveness of Endophytic Fungi from Baccharis dracunculifolia Against Sucking Insect and Fungal Pathogens. In: Rosa LH (eds) Neotropical Endophytic Fungi. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53506-3_15

For science popularization

2024 Comte J, Langevin C, Barbosa da Costa N. Surveiller la santé des lacs grâce aux microbes qui y vivent. La Conversation. Partie de la série “Nos lacs : leurs secrets, leurs défis”

2018 Barbosa da Costa N. Scientists Investigate Eutrophication Mystery and find Oligotrophication Instead. Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin doi: 10.1002/lob.10266

Community engagement

Peer-review in scientific publications and evaluation of grant applications

2026 Programme de bourses de recherche de 1er cycle (BRPC) of Université TÉLUQ (5x)

2026 External evaluator of the NSERC Discovery Grant (1x)

2024 Reviewer for Environmental Science & Technology (1x)

2023 Reviewer for Aquatic Ecology Sciences Journal (2x)

2022 Reviewer for Molecular Ecology (1x)

2021 Reviewer for PLOS ONE (2x)

Students cosupervision

2026 Elouan Lainé (Master - École Supérieure de Biotechnologie de Strasbourg) - Phenotypical study of cyanobacterial strains isolated from Quebec

2025 Gabriel Oliveira (undergraduate honour thesis - Federal Universiry of Juiz de Fora) - Genomic study of strains of Raphidiopsis raciborskii with focus in the glyphosate resistance

2024 Amélie Rivière (Collège de la Cité): Fast detection of cyanobacteria in freshwater

2023-2024 Zakary Sow (Université Laval): Culture and cryopreservation of cyanobacteria, microscopy documentation and sequencing for their integration in a culture collection

2023 Sarika Beauchemin (Université de Montréal): Cryostocks of cyanobacteria: evaluating long-temr stability of strains to different cryoprotective agents

2021-2022 Delaney Barth (McGill University): Metagennomic analysis of antimicrobial resistance genes in microbial communities exposed to a glyphosate-based herbicide

Invited speaker/lecturer

2024 Guest lecturer in the course Genomics applied to the environment (ETE426, 2 lectures) INRS-ETE, Québec, Canada

2023 The evolution of sequencing technologies and their application for cyanobacterial blooms surveillance Invited speaker at the midi-aquatique seminar, Montreal, Canada

2021 Automating tasks with the Unix Shell as a certified Carpentry instructor in the Arizona State University (online)

2019 Guest lecturer in the course Environmental microbiology (BIO2405, 1 lecture) University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada

2018 Climate change and aquatic communities: how far can we go with predictions? What is the relative contribution of ecological vs. evolutionary responses? Invited speaker at the midi-aquatique seminar, Montreal, Canada

2017 I’m a microbe! Can’t you see me? Workshop speaker and organizer. In: ÉcoLac-GRIL workshops, Station de Biologie des Laurentides, Saint-Hippolyte, Canada. Co-organizers: Costa N.B., Reis P.C.J., Tran P.

2016 What’s a green dot in the lake? It’s phytoplankton! Workshop speaker and organizer. In: ÉcoLac-GRIL workshops, Station de Biologie des Laurentides, Saint-Hippolyte, Canada. Co-organizers: Costa N.B., Reis P.C.J.

2013-2014 Guest lecturer in the courses: Evolution II (BIG033, 2 lectures) and Methods on Field Ecology (ICB021, 2 lectures) Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Science outreach

Member of organizing commitee

2026 Session organizer in the ASLO-SIL joint meeting

2024 Session organizer in the 37th SIL 2024 conference

2019 EDI workshop at the QCBS symposium, Montreal, Canada

2018-2019 Microbial Ecology Seminar Series, Montreal, Canada

2018 BIOME (BIOinformatics for METabarcoding) workshop, Saint-Hippolyte, Canada

Relevant volunteer experience

2023 Mentor of the program A thousand future scientists with high-school students

2023 Mentor of the program ELA-STEM from Redi Institute

2019-2022 Editor of Le beagle: QCBS bilingual (EN/FR) blog for science communication

2019-2022 CSEE (Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution) student representative

2017-2018 Participation as a GRIL member of the Eureka festival (Montreal, June 2018) and 24 hours of science (Montreal, May 2017 and 2018)