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

Epidemiology Of Postoperative Infection In Patients With Myelomeningocele, Treated For The Correction Of Spinal Deformities [epidemiologia Da Infecção Pós-operatória Em Pacientes Com Mielomeningocele, Tratados Para Correção De Deformidades Da Coluna Vertebral]

Objective: The spinal surgeries performed in patients with myelomeningocele are at higher risk of postoperative infection. We made an epidemiological survey of these infections and factors possibly associated to establish risk factors. Methods: A retrospective review of data from spinal surgeries performed in patients with myelomeningocele, in the Associação de Assistência à Criança Deficiente -AACD/ Hospital Abreu Sodré. The comparison of possible risk factors evaluated was made by Fisher's exact test. Results were considered significant at p<0.05. Results: We evaluated 27 surgical procedures with a total of 7 cases of postoperative surgical site infection (25.92%). Five of these patients with surgical site infection had concomitant urinary tract infection (UTI) with p=0.004. We found no statistical significance for the other factors evaluated: surgical approaches, type of procedure and total serum lymphocytes. Conclusion: UTI is related to surgical site infection, but we need a prospective study with more cases to clarify this risk factor with a possible confounding factor: the nutritional and immunologic status.104269272Benson, E.R., Thomson, J.D., Smith, B.G., Banta, J.V., Results and morbidity in a consecutive series of patients undergoing spinal fusion for neuromuscular scoliosis (1998) Spine (Phila Pa 1976), 23 (21), pp. 2308-2317Sponseller, P.D., Laporte, D.M., Hungerford, M.W., Eck, K., Bridwell, K.H., Lenke, L.G., Deep wound infections after neuromuscular scoliosis surgery: A multicenter study of risk factors and treatment outcomes (2000) Spine (Phila Pa 1976), 25 (19), pp. 2461-2466Sanchez-Sotelo, J., Sanchez Perez-Grueso, F.J., Cotrel-Dubousset instrumentation in neuromuscular spinal deformity. A five to eleven-year follow-up study (2000) Acta Orthopaedica Belgica, 66 (1), pp. 69-76Noonan, K.J.M., Myelomeningocele (2006) Lovell and Winteŕs Pediatric Orthopaedics, pp. 605-647. , Morrissy RT, Weinstein SL. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 6a. edJevsevar, D.S., Karlin, L.I., The relationship between preoperative nutritional status and complications after an operation for scoliosis in patients who have cerebral palsy (1993) Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery - Series A, 75 (6), pp. 880-884Hatlen, T., Song, K., Shurtleff, D., Duguay, S., Contributory factors to postoperative spinal fusion complications for children with myelomeningocele (2010) Spine (Phila Pa 1976), 35 (13), pp. 1294-1299Klein, J.D., Hey, L.A., Yu, C.S., Klein, B.B., Coufal, F.J., Young, E.P., Marshall, L.F., Garfin, S.R., Perioperative nutrition and postoperative complications in patients undergoing spinal surgery (1996) Spine, 21 (22), pp. 2676-2682. , DOI 10.1097/00007632-199611150-00018Modi, H.N., Suh, S.W., Yang, J.H., Cho, J.W., Hong, J.Y., Singh, S.U., Surgical complications in neuromuscular scoliosis operated with posterior- only approach using pedicle screw fixation (2009) Scoliosis, 4, p. 11Dias, R.C.C., Veiga, I.G., Pasqualini, W., Santos, M.A.M., Landim, E., Cavali, P.T.M., Avaliação do tratamento cirúrgico da cifose congênita na mielomeningocele com o uso da via posterior pela técnica de Dunn-McCarthy modificada (2008) Coluna/Columna, 7 (2), pp. 146-152Landim, E., Cavali, P.T.M., Santos, M.A.M., Pasqualini, W., Boechat, R.C.B.M., Andrade, S.M.S., Uso da prótese expansível de titânio para costela (VEPTR) como opção na instrumentação sem fusão para tratamento da escoliose neuromuscular (2008) Coluna/Columna, 7 (2), pp. 160-166Garner, J.S., Jarvis, W.R., Emori, T.G., Horan, T.C., Hughes, J.M., CDC definitions for nosocomial infections, 1988 (1988) Am J Infect Control, 16 (3), pp. 128-140Kass, E.H., Asymptomatic infections of the urinary tract (1956) Trans Assoc Am Phys, 69, pp. 56-64Hoberman, A., Wald, E.R., Reynolds, E.A., Penchansky, L., Charron, M., Pyuria and bacteriuria in urine specimens obtained by catheter from young children with fever (1994) Journal of Pediatrics, 124 (4), pp. 513-519Lapp, M.A., Bridwell, K.H., Lenke, L.G., Baldus, C., Blanke, K., Iffrig, T.M., Prospective randomization of parenteral hyperalimentation for long fusions with spinal deformity: Its effect on complications and recovery from postoperative malnutrition (2001) Spine, 26 (7), pp. 809-817. , DOI 10.1097/00007632-200104010-0002

Giants of the Amazon: How does environmental variation drive the diversity patterns of large trees?

For more than three decades, major efforts in sampling and analyzing tree diversity in South America have focused almost exclusively on trees with stems of at least 10 and 2.5 cm diameter, showing highest species diversity in the wetter western and northern Amazon forests. By contrast, little attention has been paid to patterns and drivers of diversity in the largest canopy and emergent trees, which is surprising given these have dominant ecological functions. Here, we use a machine learning approach to quantify the importance of environmental factors and apply it to generate spatial predictions of the species diversity of all trees (dbh ≥ 10 cm) and for very large trees (dbh ≥ 70 cm) using data from 243 forest plots (108,450 trees and 2832 species) distributed across different forest types and biogeographic regions of the Brazilian Amazon. The diversity of large trees and of all trees was significantly associated with three environmental factors, but in contrasting ways across regions and forest types. Environmental variables associated with disturbances, for example, the lightning flash rate and wind speed, as well as the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation, tend to govern the diversity of large trees. Upland rainforests in the Guiana Shield and Roraima regions had a high diversity of large trees. By contrast, variables associated with resources tend to govern tree diversity in general. Places such as the province of Imeri and the northern portion of the province of Madeira stand out for their high diversity of species in general. Climatic and topographic stability and functional adaptation mechanisms promote ideal conditions for species diversity. Finally, we mapped general patterns of tree species diversity in the Brazilian Amazon, which differ substantially depending on size class