Aliança das Águas: Uma iniciativa para conhecer o papel do Parque Nacional da Serra das Lontras no fornecimento de água para municípios do sul da Bahia

Este trabalho descreve as ações e resultados obtidos pelo Projeto Aliança das Águas, iniciativa que envolveu diferentes instituições com o objetivo de conhecer a contribuição do Parque Nacional da Serra das Lontras -PNSL, criado em 2010, no fornecimento local de água, assim como a percepção dos moradores da região sobre os recursos hídricos, usos da terra e problemas ambientais relacionados à manutenção das águas. Além disso, o projeto buscou contribuir com a consolidação da Unidade de Conservação através da sensibilização ambiental e da oportunidade de maior aproximação entre o órgão gestor do parque e a sociedade local, através de oficinas e reuniões em que foram aplicadas metodologias participativas, como a elaboração de mapas mentais para subsidiar um diagnóstico sócio ambiental. Além da coleta e análise de dados relacionados à vazão e qualidade da água, foi produzido um mapa de uso do solo da UC e entorno, 1.200 folders de divulgação, e realizadas nove reuniões com a participação de 292 pessoas e a produção de 10 mapas mentais com informações sobre os recursos hídricos e problemas ambientais. As análises revelaram sempre águas extremamente límpidas, e em volume suficiente para atender os diversos usos da sociedade local, com vazão mínima de 972 l/s, ou seja, no mínimo 84 milhões de litros de água por dia, em uma estimativa conservadora. Os parâmetros físico-químicos obtidos são característicos de rios presentes em bacias hidrográficas bem preservadas, demonstrando a importância da manutenção dos fragmentos florestais, considerando sua representatividade na análise de cobertura vegetal que apontou a presença de pelo menos 48% da área do parque ocupada por florestas primárias. Os mapas mentais indicam que as áreas de preservação permanente estão frequentemente ocupadas por cabrucas, e o uso indiscriminado de agrotóxicos foi identificado como o principal problema ambiental citado durante as oficinas. O projeto levantou uma enorme quantidade de informação sobre o PNSL e seu entorno. Além de gerar produtos importantes para o planejamento, monitoramento e proteção da UC, a partir dos dados apresentados abrem-se diversas possibilidades para realização de outros projetos na UC

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

Pollen morphology in <i>Athenaea</i> Sendtn. and <i>Aureliana</i> Sendtn. (Solanaceae)

<p><i>Aureliana</i> and <i>Athenaea</i> (Withaniinae, Solanaceae) are two genera of shrubs or small trees with centres of diversity in the Brazilian Atlantic Rain Forest. They are difficult to distinguish using gross morphology, and are traditionally segregated based on differences in fruiting calyx size. Pollen grains of all taxa were acetolysed, treated and examined with light and scanning electron microscopy, with the aim of identifying diagnostic characters. Microphotographs and illustrations of pollen grains are presented. The species analysed present small- to medium-sized monad pollen grains of varying morphology with long to extremely long colpi, and lalongate endoapertures. The analysis showed that the pollen grains of both genera are very similar, differing in size-related characters. These data contributed to the synonymisation of <i>Athenaea</i> within <i>Aureliana</i>.</p

Drug Resistance Modulation in Staphylococcus Aureus, a New Biological Activity for Mesoionic Hydrochloride Compounds

Two salts of the mesoionic compounds 1,4-diphenyl-5-(5-nitro-2-furanyl)-1,3,4-thiadiazolium-2-thiol chloride (MC-1) and 4-phenyl-5-(5-nitro-2-furanyl)-1,3,4-thiadiazolium-2-phenylamine chloride (MC-2) were synthesized utilizing 1,4-diphenyl-thiosemicarbazide and 5-nitro-2-furoyl chloride as starting materials. Their structures were characterized by IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR and elemental analysis. These compounds were analyzed for their influence on the effectiveness of norfloxacin, tetracycline, and erythromycin (standard antibiotics) against resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus. MC-1 and MC-2, at sub-inhibitory concentrations of 16 μg/mL, favourably modulated the antibiotic activity of tetracycline by 16- and 32-fold, respectively (MIC), and that of erythromycin by 4-fold