The review of the Brazilian Forest Act: harmful effects on amphibian conservation

In the last months there is a growing discussion in Brazil about a new Brazilian Forest Act (Código Florestal). This new proposal, in substitution to the current Act, includes modifications which will affect negatively natural populations of amphibians. Besides the deleterious impacts upon amphibians, it will also harm the national and international human populations. Among the possible effects, in consequence of the associate amphibian population declines or complete loss, we cite the increase of agricultural production costs, loss of primary sources of compounds for the medical industry, generalized ecological disequilibrium, eutrofication of water bodies, increase in the costs of water (for humans) treatment, increase of agricultural plagues, and increase of insect borne diseases. All these effects are of high relevance, even more if we consider the population declines of amphibians, the most threatened terrestrial vertebrate group in the world. Therefore, we propose that if a new Forest Act must be prepared, that it should be based, besides in unlikely immediate economical benefits to farm owners, in scientific knowledge which benefits nature conservancy, economy, health, and human welfare.Nos últimos meses está em efervescente discussão uma proposta para que um novo código florestal (Projeto de Lei nº 1876/99) substitua o vigente instaurado por meio da Lei Federal nº 4771/65 e modificado recentemente por Medidas Provisórias. Este novo código proposto, todavia, propõe alterações legais que devem afetar negativamente as populações naturais de anfíbios do Brasil. O declínio de anfíbios deve gerar impactos negativos tanto para a população (humana) nacional, como para a comunidade internacional. Entre os possíveis efeitos dessa lei, em consequência da perda de diversidade de anfíbios, podemos citar o aumento nos custos de produção agrícola, perda de matéria prima para produção de remédios, descontrole ecológico, eutrofização de corpos d'água, encarecimento do custo do tratamento de água para abastecimento humano, aumento de pragas agrícolas e aumento de doenças transmitidas por insetos vetores. Isto tudo é bastante preocupante ainda mais se levarmos em conta a própria perda da biodiversidade de anfíbios, o grupo de vertebrados terrestres mais ameaçado do planeta. Sendo assim, ressaltamos a necessidade de que, caso um novo código florestal seja elaborado, este tenha embasamento também em questões técnicas e científicas que impreterivelmente afetam, não só a conservação da natureza, mas também a economia, saúde e bem estar das populações humanas.3538Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 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 or ganism 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 ne glected 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 lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 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,18,19 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

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved