Litter Production in an Area of Amazonian Terra Firme Forest. Part I.Litter - fall, Organic carbon and total Nitrogen Contents of Litter').

In 1963 anð, L964 litter was collected in a terra firme forest near Manaus, oven-dried and shipped to Europè. The sampleswere subdivided intofour litterfractions (leaves, wood,'fruits, termite fraction), dried at 105o and weighed. Organic carbon and total nitrogen of these litter fractions were determined. Annual average litter production is 7.4 t/ha consisting in 5.6 t ofleaves, and 1.8 t ofother litter. 105,6 kg nitrogen return annually to the soil. Compared with data on litter production and nitrogen content of litter of other tropical forests, the Amazonian forest produces less litter and returns a lower amount of nitrogen to the soil

Nutritional and health status of woolly monkeys

Woolly monkeys (Lagothrix lagotricha and L. flavicauda) are threatened species in the wild and in captivity. Numerous zoological institutions have historically kept Lagothrix lagotricha spp., but only a few of them have succeeded in breeding populations. Therefore the majority of institutions that formerly kept Lagothrix lagotricha are no longer able or willing to do so. Captive populations of the species have frequent health problems, most significantly hypertension and related disorders. Researchers have conducted free-ranging dietary and behavior studies with respect to woolly monkeys, but have established no concrete link between diet or nutrients and captive health problems. The available literature we discuss indicates that researchers need to examine the link further. In addition, it is critical to the survival of the primates to be able to keep breeding populations in captivity owing to increasing natural pressures such as deforestation and hunting. Therefore, better understanding of the captive and free-ranging behavior and health parameters of the species is vital to ensure their survival and to maintain forest health and diversity. Researchers need to conduct large-scale research studies comparing the health and complete diet of individuals in the wild and captivity to resolve health problems facing the species in captivity

Preliminary data on nutrient release from decomposing leaf litter in a Neotropical rain forest

The release of nutrients (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na) from decomposing leaves during the dry season in a neotropical seasonal evergreen rain forest near Manaus, State of Amazonas, Brasil was measured estimating the nutrient amounts in leaf litter in June and November 1970, and of leaf fall in between. The following amounts in kg/ha/dry season were released: 162.2 N, 4.7 P, 18.9 K, 41.5 Ca, 11.9 Mg, and 9.4 Na. The results cannot be used for extrapolation of the nutrient release over the whole year, as no estimates were made in the rainy season

Light converts endosymbiotic fungus to pathogen, influencing seedling survival and host tree recruitment

Endophytic fungi that asymptomatically colonize plants^1^ are diverse and abundant in tropical ecosystems^2^. These organisms can be weakly pathogenic^3^ and/or mutualistic, frequently enabling plants to adapt to extreme environments, alter competitive abilities of host individuals and improve host fitness under abiotic or biotic stresses^4,5,6^. _Diplodia mutila_ is a symbiotic endophyte/plant pathogenic fungus infecting the palm _Iriartea deltoidea_^7^, which dominates many wet lowland Neotropical forests. The fungus is an asymptomatic endophyte in mature plants, and disease and mortality are expressed in some seedlings, while others remain disease free. Here we show that seedlings bearing the endophyte show enhanced resistance to insect herbivory. However, high light availability triggers pathogenicity of the fungus, while low light favors endosymbiotic development, constraining recruitment of endophyte-infested seedlings to the shaded understory by limiting survival of seedlings in direct light. These results provide evidence that patterns of plant abundance and the mechanisms maintaining tropical forest biodiversity are the result of a more complex interplay between abiotic and biotic environments than previously thought

New Species of Siparuna (Siparunaceae) III

Three new species of Siparuna (Siparunaceae) are described, illustrated, and placed in a phylogenetic context: S. gentryana from western Ecuador and adjacent Colombia, S. lozaniana from the western Andes in Colombia, and S. vasqueziana from Amazonian Peru. In addition, Siparuna calantha from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, originally described by Janet Perkins as a variety of a Mexican entity, is raised to species rank because its broader leaves and more numerous carpels readily distinguish it from its apparent closest relative, a species from the western Colombian Andes. Each of the species is known from several collections, which allowed the secure matching of sexual morphs in the three that are dioecious

Widespread forest vertebrate extinctions induced by a mega hydroelectric dam in lowland Amazonia

Mega hydropower projects in tropical forests pose a major emergent threat to terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity worldwide. Despite the unprecedented number of existing, underconstruction and planned hydroelectric dams in lowland tropical forests, long-term effects on biodiversity have yet to be evaluated. We examine how medium and large-bodied assemblages of terrestrial and arboreal vertebrates (including 35 mammal, bird and tortoise species) responded to the drastic 26-year post-isolation history of archipelagic alteration in landscape structure and habitat quality in a major hydroelectric reservoir of Central Amazonia. The Balbina Hydroelectric Dam inundated 3,129 km2 of primary forests, simultaneously isolating 3,546 land-bridge islands. We conducted intensive biodiversity surveys at 37 of those islands and three adjacent continuous forests using a combination of four survey techniques, and detected strong forest habitat area effects in explaining patterns of vertebrate extinction. Beyond clear area effects, edge-mediated surface fire disturbance was the most important additional driver of species loss, particularly in islands smaller than 10 ha. Based on species-area models, we predict that only 0.7% of all islands now harbor a species-rich vertebrate assemblage consisting of ≥80% of all species. We highlight the colossal erosion in vertebrate diversity driven by a man-made dam and show that the biodiversity impacts of mega dams in lowland tropical forest regions have been severely overlooked. The geopolitical strategy to deploy many more large hydropower infrastructure projects in regions like lowland Amazonia should be urgently reassessed, and we strongly advise that long-term biodiversity impacts should be explicitly included in pre-approval environmental impact assessments

Consumer Power to Change the Food System? A Critical Reading of Food Labels as Governance Spaces: The Case of Acai Berry Superfoods

This article argues that the marketing claims on food labels are a governance space worthy of critical examination. We use a case study of superfood açaí berry products to illustrate how marketing claims on food labels encapsulate dominant neoliberal constructions of global food systems. These marketing claims implicitly promise that by making careful choices consumers can resist and redress the ravages of unbridled global capitalism. Food labels suggest that consumers can use market signals to simultaneously govern our own selves and the market to ensure sustainable, fair, and healthy consumption. In response, this article develops, justifies and applies a socio-legal approach to researching food chain governance which uses the food label as its unit of analysis and traces from the micro level of what the everyday consumer is exposed to on a food label to the broader governance processes that the food label both symbolizes and effects. We demonstrate our approach through a “label and chain governance analysis” of açaí berry marketing claims to deconstruct both the regulatory governance of the chain behind the food choices available to the consumer evident from the label and the way in which labels seek to govern consumer choices. Our analysis unpacks the nutritionist, primitivist undertones to the health claims made on these products, the neo-colonial and racist dimensions in their claims regarding fair trade and rural socio-economic development, and, the use of green-washing claims about biodiversity conservation and ecological sustainability. Through our application of this approach to the case study of açaí berry product labels, we show how food labels can legitimize the market-based governance of globalized food chains and misleadingly suggest that capitalist production can be adequately restrained by self-regulation, market-based governance and reflexive consumer choices alone. We conclude by suggesting the need for both greater deconstruction of the governance assumptions behind food labels and to possibilities for collective, public interest oriented regulatory governance of both labelling and the food system

The management of tree genetic resources and the livelihoods of rural communities in the tropics: non-timber forest products, smallholder agroforestry practices and tree commodity crops

Products and services provided by trees in forests and farmland support the needs and promote the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of people in the tropics. Value depends on managing both the diversity of tree species present in landscapes and the genetic variation within these species. The benefits from trees and their genetic resources are, however, often not well quantified because trade is frequently outside formal markets, there is a multiplicity of species and ways in which trees are used and managed, and genetic diversity within species is frequently not given proper consideration. We review here what is known about the value of trees to rural communities through considering three production categories: non-timber products harvested from trees in natural and managed forests and woodlands; the various products and services obtained from a wide range of trees planted and/or retained in smallholders’ agroforestry systems; and the commercial products harvested from cultivated tree commodity crops. Where possible, we focus on the role of intra-specific genetic variation in providing support to livelihoods, and for each of the three production categories we also consider wider conservation and sustainability issues, including the linkages between categories in terms of management. Challenges to ‘conventional wisdom’ on tree resource use, value and management – such as in the posited links between commercialisation, cultivation and conservation – are highlighted, and constraints and opportunities to maintain and enhance value are described

Notas sobre la historia natural de las oropéndolas Psarocolius yuracares y P. Angustifrons Alfredi en la provincia Chapare, Cochabamba, Bolivia

Se aportan datos de historia natural para dos oropéndolas o tojos (Psarocolius yuracares y P. angustifrons alfredi) poco estudiadas de la provincia Chapare, Departamento Cochabamba, Bolivia. P. yuracares resultó ser la más escasa, y se la encontró, generalmente desplazándose en bandadas monoespecíficas, hasta los 900 m s.n.m. Se encontraron tres colonias de nidificación, dos pequeñas de 5-6 nidos en palmas Socratea en la selva (Agosto y Noviembre), y una colonia mayor (Octubre), cerca de plantaciones, con más de 30 nidos activos en un gran árbol leguminoso de unos 35 m. Esta fue un colonia mixta con nidos de otra oropéndola (P. decumanus). Los nidos de P. yuracares, más cilíndricos y de tejido más tosco que los de P. decumanus, estaban agrupados en dos núcleos (clusters), cada uno con un macho que cantaba y efectuaba despliegues, los cuales no colaboraban ni con la construcción ni con la alimentación de pichones, pero sí en alejar al Tordo Gigante (Molothrus oryzivorus). P. angustifrons alfredi resultó la oropéndola más abundante del Chapare, y se encontró en abundancia en plantaciones, pueblos y aldeas, donde nidifica a partir de Julio. No encontramos sus nidos arriba de los 700 m s.n.m. De 15 colonias, nueve fueron construidas en la palma tembe (Bactris gasipaes), nativa y cultivada en el Chapare. Las colonias nunca excedieron los 14 nidos, dando un promedio de 6,7 nidos simultáneamente activos por colonia. Los nidos, de tejido tosco, estaban bien espaciados y nunca encimados. Esta oropéndola expulsó agresivamente de sus colonias a Psarocolius yuracares y al Tojito (Cacicus cela). Se observaron desde uno a cuatro machos en las colonias, en un caso dos de éstos alternando en despliegues y cantos. Sólo las hembras efectuaron todas las actividades de nidificación. Pichones dependientes se observaron junto con hembras hasta el comienzo de la temporada de cría siguiente. No se detectó parasitismo por el Tordo Gigante.-We present natural history data for the little-known Olive (Psarocolius yuracares) and Yellowbilled (P. angustifrons alfredi) oropendolas from Chapare Province, Cochabamba department, Bolivia. The Olive was the scarcest oropendola, usually traveling in monospecific flocks up to 900 m a.s.l. We found only three nesting colonies, two with 5–6 nests in Socratea palms in dense forest (August and November), and one with about 30 active nests (October), close to plantations, in an emergent, 35-m high legume tree. This last colony was mixed, having active nests of Crested Oropendolas (P. decumanus). Nests of Olive Oropendolas were located in two separate, dense clusters, and were more cylindrical and coarsely woven than those of Crested Oropendolas. One singing and displaying male was present at each cluster, which did not participate in nesting activities, but helped to expel Giant Cowbirds (Molothrus oryzivorus) from the colony. The Yellow-billed was the most abundant oropendola in the Chapare, visiting and nesting in plantations, villages and towns, from July onwards. No nests were observed above 700 m a.s.l. Nine of 15 colonies were built in peach palms (Bactris gasipaes), a native species cultivated in Chapare. Colonies did not exceed 14 nests, and had a mean of 6.7 simultaneously active nests. Nests were coarsely woven, well spaced and never clustered. This oropendola agressively expelled Olive Oropendolas and Yellow-rumped Caciques (Cacicus cela) from their nesting trees. One to four males visited the colonies and, in one case, two males alternated in songs and displays. All nesting activities were carried out by females. Dependent chicks may remain with females up to the start of the following breeding season. We did not detect parasitism by Giant Cowbirds on this speciesFil: Fraga, Rosendo Manuel. Provincia de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción; ArgentinaFil: Kreft, Stefan. University of Applied Sciences Eberswalde; Alemani