Rapid responses of root traits and productivity to phosphorus and cation additions in a tropical lowland forest in Amazonia

• Soil nutrient availability can strongly affect root traits. In tropical forests, phosphorus (P) is often considered the main limiting nutrient for plants. However, support for the P paradigm is limited, and N and cations might also control tropical forests functioning. • We used a large‐scale experiment to determine how the factorial addition of nitrogen (N), P and cations affected root productivity and traits related to nutrient acquisition strategies (morphological traits, phosphatase activity, arbuscular mycorrhizal colonisation and nutrient contents) in a primary rainforest growing on low‐fertility soils in Central Amazonia after one year of fertilisation. • Multiple root traits and productivity were affected. Phosphorus additions increased annual root productivity and root diameter, but decreased root phosphatase activity. Cation additions increased root productivity at certain times of year, also increasing root diameter and mycorrhizal colonisation. P and cation additions increased their element concentrations in root tissues. No responses were detected with N addition. • Here we show that rock‐derived nutrients determine root functioning in low‐fertility Amazonian soils, demonstrating not only the hypothesised importance of P, but also highlighting the role of cations. The changes in fine root traits and productivity indicate that even slow‐growing tropical rainforests can respond rapidly to changes in resource availability

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time, and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space. While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes, vast areas of the tropics remain understudied. In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity, but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases. To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge, it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Recovery Of Staphylococcus Aureus After Acid Injury [recuperacion De Staphylococcus Aureus Despues Del Dano Acido]

The growth behavior of S. aureus in fresh cheese (Minas and Muzzarela) during their shelf life was studied in this research. The possibility of injury to this microorganism caused by increasing acidity was also investigated. Raw milk was inoculated with S. aureus FRIA-100 with approximately 10 6 cells/ml and cheese production was carried out according to normal procedures. They were stored at 7 °C during 40 days for Minas cheese and during 60 days for Muzzarela cheese. At 2 to 3 days intervals the following analyses were performed: acidity, pH, S. aureus count on Baird- Parker agar by traditional methods and by the method recommended by the American Public Health Association, to count repair of injured cells. We were certain of the presence of injured S. aureus when acidity was in the range of 0.7 to 0.8% expressed as lactic acid and when the count was 1.3 log higher.37212713