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

Síntese e caracterização de matrizes híbridas para aplicação em sistemas de liberação controlada

Carriers and flexible macromolecular chains covalently linked, hydrogels are highly hydrophilic polymers, and when synthesized from the junction of synthetic and natural polymers have excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability and porosity. What expands its applicability from controlled release of both drugs as nutrients to the soil, therapeutic implants, cell culture and cartilage, and others. In this work, nanocomposite hydrogels formed from polyacrylamide (PAAm), carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and zeolite were synthesized via free radical polymerization. The characterizations of these nanocomposites were made from swelling degree studies in four different media (distilled water, NaCl (varying the concentration of 0.05; 0.10; 0, 15 and 0.20 mol / L), CaCl 2 (0.15 mol / L) and AlCl 3 (0.15 mol / L); kinetic properties (n and k); fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR); scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and thermal analysis (TG, DTG and DSC). It was possible to conclude that the PAAm, CMC and zeolite hydrogels had lower absorption capacity when compared to hydrogels without zeolite. Also, the concentration of N, N, N', N' - tetramethylethylenediamine TEMED catalyst has strong influence on the degree of swelling of hydrogels, because it acts directly on the speed and in the polymerization reactions. Saline solutions containing large ionic charges (CaCl 2 and AlCl 3 ) have lower performance in the swelling degree when compared to solutions with small charge (NaCl), being that its variation no provoked significant changes in the swelling degree. As seen in the FTIR, SEM and EDS techniques, there was interaction between hydrogels PAAm and CMC with the zeolite, decreasing the matrix pore sizes which directly influences the degree of swelling and structure of hydrogels. From thermal analysis, it was possible to conclude that the zeolite increased the thermal stability of nanocomposites. Thus ...Portadores de cadeias macromoleculares flexíveis e interligadas covalentemente, os hidrogéis são polímeros hidrofílicos, e quando sintetizados a partir da junção de polímeros sintéticos e naturais possuem excelente biocompatibilidade, biodegradabilidade e porosidade. O que amplia sua aplicabilidade desde liberação controlada, tanto de medicamentos quanto de nutrientes para o solo, implantes terapêuticos, cultura de células e cartilagens, dentre outros. Nesse trabalho, os hidrogéis nanocompósitos foram sintetizados via polimerização radical livre a partir de poliacrilamida (PAAm), carboximetilcelulose (CMC) e zeólita. A caracterização desses nanocompósitos foi realizada a partir de estudos de grau de intumescimento, no qual foram utilizados 4 meio diferentes (água destilada, NaCl (variando- se a concentração em 0,05; 0,10; 0,15 e 0,20 mol/L), CaCl 2 (a 0,15 mol/L) e AlCl 3 (a 0,15 mol/L)); propriedades cinéticas (n e k); espectroscopia de absorção no infravermelho (FTIR); microscopia eletrônica de varredura (MEV) e análises térmicas (TG, DTG e DSC). Concluímos que os hidrogéis de PAAm, CMC e zeólita apresentaram menor capacidade de absorção quando comparados a hidrogéis de PAAm e CMC. Percebemos que a concentração de catalisador N, N, N', N' -tetrametiletilenodiamina (TEMED) tem forte influência sobre o grau de intumescimento dos hidrogéis, pois age diretamente na velocidade e na formação das reações que originam os hidrogéis nanocompósitos. As soluções salinas contendo cargas iônicas maiores (CaCl 2 e AlCl 3 ) apresentam menor desempenho no grau de intumescimento; enquanto que soluções com carga menor (NaCl) apresentam melhor desempenho, sendo que sua concentração não provocou grandes variações no grau de intumescimento. Como visto nas análises de FTIR, MEV e EDS, pode-se afirmar que houve interação entre os hidrogéis de PAAm e CMC..

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

Núcleos de Ensino da Unesp: artigos 2008

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES: a data set on carnivore distribution in the Neotropics

Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae. Herein, we include published and unpublished data on native terrestrial Neotropical carnivores (Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae). NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES is a publicly available data set that includes 99,605 data entries from 35,511 unique georeferenced coordinates. Detection/non-detection and quantitative data were obtained from 1818 to 2018 by researchers, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private consultants. Data were collected using several methods including camera trapping, museum collections, roadkill, line transect, and opportunistic records. Literature (peer-reviewed and grey literature) from Portuguese, Spanish and English were incorporated in this compilation. Most of the data set consists of detection data entries (n = 79,343; 79.7%) but also includes non-detection data (n = 20,262; 20.3%). Of those, 43.3% also include count data (n = 43,151). The information available in NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES will contribute to macroecological, ecological, and conservation questions in multiple spatio-temporal perspectives. As carnivores play key roles in trophic interactions, a better understanding of their distribution and habitat requirements are essential to establish conservation management plans and safeguard the future ecological health of Neotropical ecosystems. Our data paper, combined with other large-scale data sets, has great potential to clarify species distribution and related ecological processes within the Neotropics. There are no copyright restrictions and no restriction for using data from this data paper, as long as the data paper is cited as the source of the information used. We also request that users inform us of how they intend to use the data