Climate seasonality limits leaf carbon assimilation and wood productivity in tropical forests

The seasonal climate drivers of the carbon cycle in tropical forests remain poorly known, although these forests account for more carbon assimilation and storage than any other terrestrial ecosystem. Based on a unique combination of seasonal pan-tropical data sets from 89 experimental sites (68 include aboveground wood productivity measurements and 35 litter productivity measurements), their associated canopy photosynthetic capacity (enhanced vegetation index, EVI) and climate, we ask how carbon assimilation and aboveground allocation are related to climate seasonality in tropical forests and how they interact in the seasonal carbon cycle. We found that canopy photosynthetic capacity seasonality responds positively to precipitation when rainfall is < 2000ĝ€-mmĝ€-yrĝ'1 (water-limited forests) and to radiation otherwise (light-limited forests). On the other hand, independent of climate limitations, wood productivity and litterfall are driven by seasonal variation in precipitation and evapotranspiration, respectively. Consequently, light-limited forests present an asynchronism between canopy photosynthetic capacity and wood productivity. First-order control by precipitation likely indicates a decrease in tropical forest productivity in a drier climate in water-limited forest, and in current light-limited forest with future rainfall < 2000ĝ€-mmĝ€-yrĝ'1. Author(s) 2016.Fil: Wagner, Fabien H.. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais; BrasilFil: Hérault, Bruno. Ecologie Des Forets de Guyane; BrasilFil: Bonal, Damien. Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique; FranciaFil: Stahl, Clment. Universiteit Antwerp; BélgicaFil: Anderson, Liana O.. National Center For Monitoring And Early Warning Of Natural Disasters; BrasilFil: Baker, Timothy R.. University Of Leeds; Reino UnidoFil: Sebastian Becker, Gabriel. Universidad de Hohenheim; AlemaniaFil: Beeckman, Hans. Royal Museum For Central Africa; BélgicaFil: Boanerges Souza, Danilo. Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia; BrasilFil: Cesar Botosso, Paulo. Ministerio da Agricultura Pecuaria e Abastecimento de Brasil. Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria; BrasilFil: Bowman, David M. J. S.. University of Tasmania; AustraliaFil: Bräuning, Achim. Universitat Erlangen-Nuremberg; AlemaniaFil: Brede, Benjamin. Wageningen University And Research Centre; Países BajosFil: Irving Brown, Foster. Universidade Federal Do Acre; BrasilFil: Julio Camarero, Jesus. Instituto Boliviano de Investigacion Forestal Bolivia; BoliviaFil: Camargo, Plnio Barbosa. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Cardoso, Fernanda C.G.. Universidade Federal do Paraná; BrasilFil: Carvalho, Fabrcio Alvim. Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora; BrasilFil: Castro, Wendeson. Universidade Federal Do Acre; BrasilFil: Koloski Chagas, Rubens. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Chave, Jrome. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; FranciaFil: Chidumayo, Emmanuel N.. University Of Zambia; ZambiaFil: Clark, Deborah A.. University Of Missouri-st. Louis; Estados UnidosFil: Regina Capellotto Costa, Flavia. Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia; BrasilFil: Couralet, Camille. Royal Museum For Central Africa; BélgicaFil: Henrique Da Silva Mauricio, Paulo. Universidade Federal Do Acre; BrasilFil: Dalitz, Helmut. Universidad de Hohenheim; AlemaniaFil: Resende De Castro, Vinicius. Universidade Federal de Vicosa; BrasilFil: Milani, Jaanan Eloisa De Freitas. Universidade Federal do Paraná; BrasilFil: Roig Junent, Fidel Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Museo de Historia Natural de San Rafael - Ianigla | Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Museo de Historia Natural de San Rafael - Ianigla | Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Museo de Historia Natural de San Rafael - Ianigla; Argentin

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Population structure of Rudgea parquioides (Rubiaceae), a shade-tolerant shrub species, in Southern Brazil

The expectations that shade-tolerant forest species show 1) a population structure composed by a high amount of small individuals, and 2) biomass allocation for diameter higher than for height growth, were tested for Rudgea parquioides, a typical shrub in Southern Brazil. We described the size structure (height and stem diameter) and allometrical relations of a R. parquioides population by counting and measuring all the individuals in a 725m² area in the municipality of Curitiba (25"25'S; 49"19'W). A total of 916 individuals (12,634 ind.ha-1) were recorded in the area. The firstexpectation was supported, since distribution by height and diameter classes showed a predominance of small individuals (skewness coefficients > 1). On the other hand, the regression between height and stem base diameter showed slope &#946; Foram testadas duas hipóteses relativas a espécies florestaistolerantes à sombra em uma população de Rudgea parquioides, um arbusto característico do sul do Brasil: 1) espécies tolerantes à sombra possuem uma estrutura populacional composta por um grande número de indivíduos pequenos e 2) a alocação de biomassa para o crescimento em diâmetro é maior que para o crescimento em altura. Foram descritas as estruturas de tamanho (altura e diâmetro do tronco) e relações alométricas através da contagem e medição de todos os indivíduos de R. parquioides em uma área de 725m² no município de Curitiba (25"25'S; 49"19'W). Um total de 916 indivíduos(12.634 ind.ha-1) foi medido nesta área. A primeira hipótese foi aceita, uma vez que a distribuição em classes de altura e de diâmetro mostrou um predomínio de indivíduos pequenos (coeficiente de assimetria > 1). Por outro lado, a regressão entre altura e diâmetro na base do caule mostrou inclinação &#946; < 1, o que indica que o crescimento em altura é maior que em diâmetro, não suportando a segunda hipótese. Esses resultados mostram que as estratégias de crescimento em espécies tolerantes à sombra podem implicar em outras relações ecológicas além das já descritas

Brazilian Flora 2020: Leveraging the power of a collaborative scientific network

International audienceThe shortage of reliable primary taxonomic data limits the description of biological taxa and the understanding of biodiversity patterns and processes, complicating biogeographical, ecological, and evolutionary studies. This deficit creates a significant taxonomic impediment to biodiversity research and conservation planning. The taxonomic impediment and the biodiversity crisis are widely recognized, highlighting the urgent need for reliable taxonomic data. Over the past decade, numerous countries worldwide have devoted considerable effort to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which called for the preparation of a working list of all known plant species by 2010 and an online world Flora by 2020. Brazil is a megadiverse country, home to more of the world's known plant species than any other country. Despite that, Flora Brasiliensis, concluded in 1906, was the last comprehensive treatment of the Brazilian flora. The lack of accurate estimates of the number of species of algae, fungi, and plants occurring in Brazil contributes to the prevailing taxonomic impediment and delays progress towards the GSPC targets. Over the past 12 years, a legion of taxonomists motivated to meet Target 1 of the GSPC, worked together to gather and integrate knowledge on the algal, plant, and fungal diversity of Brazil. Overall, a team of about 980 taxonomists joined efforts in a highly collaborative project that used cybertaxonomy to prepare an updated Flora of Brazil, showing the power of scientific collaboration to reach ambitious goals. This paper presents an overview of the Brazilian Flora 2020 and provides taxonomic and spatial updates on the algae, fungi, and plants found in one of the world's most biodiverse countries. We further identify collection gaps and summarize future goals that extend beyond 2020. Our results show that Brazil is home to 46,975 native species of algae, fungi, and plants, of which 19,669 are endemic to the country. The data compiled to date suggests that the Atlantic Rainforest might be the most diverse Brazilian domain for all plant groups except gymnosperms, which are most diverse in the Amazon. However, scientific knowledge of Brazilian diversity is still unequally distributed, with the Atlantic Rainforest and the Cerrado being the most intensively sampled and studied biomes in the country. In times of “scientific reductionism”, with botanical and mycological sciences suffering pervasive depreciation in recent decades, the first online Flora of Brazil 2020 significantly enhanced the quality and quantity of taxonomic data available for algae, fungi, and plants from Brazil. This project also made all the information freely available online, providing a firm foundation for future research and for the management, conservation, and sustainable use of the Brazilian funga and flora

Contribuições da Sociologia na América Latina à imaginação sociológica: análise, crítica e compromisso social Sociology's contribution in Latin America to sociological imagination: analysis, critique, and social commitment

O artigo aborda o papel desempenhado pela Sociologia na análise dos processos de transformação das sociedades latino-americanas, no acompanhamento do processo de construção do Estado e da Nação, na problematização das questões sociais na América Latina. São analisados seis períodos na Sociologia na América Latina e no Caribe: I) a herança intelectual da Sociologia ; II) a sociologia da cátedra; III) O período da "Sociologia Científica" e a configuração da "Sociologia Crítica"; IV) a crise institucional, a consolidação da "Sociologia Crítica" e a diversificação da sociologia; V) a sociologia do autoritarismo, da democracia e da exclusão; VI) a consolidação institucional e a mundialização da sociologia da América Latina (desde o ano de 2000), podendo-se afirmar que os traços distintivos do saber sociológico no continente foram: o internacionalismo, o hibridismo, a abordagem crítica dos processos e conflitos das sociedades latino-americanas e o compromisso social do sociólogo.<br>The article focuses on the role played by Sociology in the analysis of processes of change in Latin American societies, in the process of construction of Nation and State, in the debate of social issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. Six periods in Sociology in Latin America and the Caribbean are examined: I) sociology's intellectual legacy; II) sociology as a cathedra; III) the period of "Scientific Sociology"; IV) the institutional crisis, the consolidation of "Critical Sociology", and the diversifying of sociology; V) sociology of authoritarianism, democracy and exclusion; VI) institutional consolidation and globalization of Latin American sociology (since 2000). It may be said that the distinctive features of sociological knowledge in the continent were: internationalism, hybridism, the critical approach to processes and conflicts of Latin American societies, and the sociologist social commitment