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

Influência ambiental sobre características de desempenho pré-desmama de bovinos Devon no Rio Grande do Sul Environmental effects on pre-weaning performance traits of Devon cattle in Rio Grande do Sul

O objetivo neste estudo foi avaliar o efeito dos fatores ambientais, do grupo de contemporâneos (GC), da data juliana do nascimento (DJN), da idade da vaca ao parto (IV) e da idade do bezerro à desmama (IT) sobre características de desempenho produtivo na fase pré-desmama de bovinos Devon criados no Rio Grande do Sul. Foram analisados o peso ao nascer (PN) e à desmama (PD) e o ganho do nascimento à desmama ajustado para 205 dias (GNDA). Foram utilizados registros de 23.369 animais, coletados pelo PROMEBO - Programa de Melhoramento de Bovinos de Carne, conduzido pela Associação Nacional de Criadores - "Herd Book Collares", nascidos entre 1980 e 2000. Destes animais, 16.593 tinham registro de PN, 22.530 tinham de PD e 22.259 de GNDA. As análises foram realizadas pelo PROC MIXED do SAS, cujo modelo considerou, além dos efeitos ambientais citados, o efeito aleatório do touro e o erro residual. A DJN foi considerada pela freqüência de nascimento dentro de classes de dez dias, em um total de 13 classes. A primeira, iniciando aos 190 dias do ano até a classe 13, dos 310 aos 320 dias. Para PN, os animais nascidos na classe 12 (out-nov) foram 3,15% mais pesados que os da classe 190 (jul), ao contrário do PD e GNDA, em que os melhores resultados foram na classe 190, respectivamente, 11,51 e 9,99% superiores aos nascidos na classe 13 (nov). O efeito da idade da vaca apresentou ponto de máxima em torno dos oito anos de idade, demonstrando tendência quadrática. O efeito da idade do bezerro apresentou tendência quadrática para GNDA e linear para PD. Esses resultados indicam que a inclusão dos efeitos ambientais no modelo de análise das características produtivas pré-desmama é necessária para que as avaliações genéticas sejam adequadamente ajustadas e, portanto, mais precisas e confiáveis.<br>The objective of this study was to evaluate the environmental effects of contemporary groups (CG), Julian birth date (JBD), age of dam at calving (AD) and age of calf at weaning (AC) on pre-weaning performance traits: birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW) and 205 days adjusted weaning gain (WG) of Devon cattle raised in Rio Grande do Sul. A total of 23,369 records on animals, born from 1980 to 2000, collected by PROMEBO - beef cattle improvement program of Associação Nacional de Criadores Herd Book Collares were used. Analyses were performed by PROC MIXED of SAS, using a model that included CG, JBD and AD as fixed effects and sire and residual error as random effects. Average BW of animals that were born in Oct-Nov was 3.15% higher than BW of animals that were born in Jul, which were respectively for WW and WG 11.51% and 9.99% heavier than animals that were born in Nov. Age of dam showed a quadratic effect with maximal response on all traits around eight years,. The age of calf effect was quadratic on WG and linear on WW. These results indicate environmental effects should be included in models used for genetic evaluations of pre-weaning performance traits in order to improve their precision and reliability