Saúde dos olhos: diagnóstico laboratorial de ceratites infecciosas e ações preventivas com usuários de lentes de contato

Anais do 35º Seminário de Extensão Universitária da Região Sul - Área temática: SaúdeNas últimas décadas, houve um aumento de casos de ceratites infecciosas, principalmente devido ao manuseio incorreto das lentes de contato e produtos envolvidos em sua manutenção, que podem servir como fonte de diversos microrganismos patogênicos, como bactérias, fungos, protozoários e vírus. Na busca pela melhoria do diagnóstico de casos de ceratites infecciosas, visando o diagnóstico precoce e específico, como também a prevenção de casos de infecções corneanas, o presente trabalho teve por objetivo prestar atendimento e orientação a pacientes atendidos em ambulatórios de oftalmologia de Hospitais de Florianópolis, como também de pacientes atendidos em clínicas de oftalmologia, estudantes da UFSC e óticas comerciais, oferecendo o serviço de diagnóstico de ceratite amebiana e o monitoramento de estojos e soluções de limpeza de estojos de lentes de contato, quanto à presença de patógenos oculares e a orientação dos cuidados com o uso de lentes de contato. Entre maio de 2014 e fevereiro de 2017, aproximadamente 600 manuais de boas práticas de conservação dos estojos de lentes de contato foram entregues a usuários de lentes de contato. Foram analisadas 162 amostras de estojos de lentes de contato e 14 amostras clínicas de raspados de córnea de pacientes com suspeita de ceratite amebiana. O isolamento bacteriano e fúngico foi realizado em meios de cultivo específicos. Das 162 amostras de estojos de lentes de contato, seis (3,7%) foram positivas para Acanthamoeba spp., 42 (26%) para fungos e de 47 estojos analisados, 18 (38%) foram positivos para bactérias. Das amostras clínicas, três foram confirmadas como infecção por Acanthamoeba spp. (genótipo T4 e T5), três casos de ceratite bacteriana e três por fungos. O estudo contribuiu para a prevenção de casos de infecções oculares, disseminando conhecimento e orientações para usuários de lentes de contato, além de diagnosticar precocemente casos de ceratites propiciando a realização de tratamento específic

Sporotrichosis Outburst after Cancer Chemotherapy in a Dog

Background: Sporotrichosis is a dermatozoonosis that affects mammals in general, with the domestic feline (Felis catus) being the most epidemiologically important species. However, diagnosis of this disease in dogs is important considering the proximity with people and with other communicants. The epidemiology of sporotrichosis is already known in some states of Brazil, especially in the southeast region, but to the best of our knowledge there are no reports of sporotrichosis in non-human species in the state of Espírito Santo. This paper aimed at describing the first case of canine sporotrichosis in Espírito Santo, Brazil.Case: A 10 year-old Bull Terrier male dog was presented with nodular non-ulcerated lesions on the head and nodular ulcerated lesion on the nasal planum. The dog had a previous diagnosis of a low-grade mast cell tumour and palpebral melanoma. Mast cell tumour was treated with scrotum ablation (and orchiectomy) and bilateral inguinal lymph node removal, followed by chemotherapy with twelve intravenous infusion of vinblastine, along with prednisolone. Cutaneous lesions in the head and nasal planum appeared two months after finishing chemotherapy. At further anamnesis, the pet´s responsible reported that the dog had the habit of hunting cats that entered the residence, which raised the hypothesis of sporotrichosis. An undiagnostic cytology was performed, followed by a fungal culture, positive for Sporothrix schenckii. Treatment was then initiated with itraconazol (Oficial generic drug), at a dose of 10mg/kg/SID, until clinical remission, obtained after 60 days, maintaining it for 60 more days. Patient showed completed recovery, with no further complatints after a follow-up of more than 220 days.Discussion: Sporotrichosis is considered a rare disease in dogs, with isolated cases in the literature. The dog of the present report was diagnosed with sporotrichosis two months after the end of a chemotherapy treatment for a mast cell tumour. Therefore, it is suggested that the patient in this study was infected during an immunosuppressive phase. The same can occur with other immunosuppressive treatments, such as glucocorticoid, also included in the chemotherapy treatment of this patient, calcineurin inhibitors (cyclosporine) and mercaptopurine derivatives (azathioprine). Cytology is usually unconclusive for such lesions in dogs, once only a few yeast might be present. Nevertheless, the definitive diagnosis was obtained through fungal microculture. Treatment with itraconazol was successful but dogs might also present favorable responses to ioidine. Itraconazole is a fungistatic drug, fungicidal only in high doses. For this reason, if the fungistatic dose is not administered for sufficient time, recurrences may occur. In the last three years, Espirito Santo has become a new epidemiological scenario for sporotrichosis, and it is placed in the route of transmission, closely to Rio de Janeiro. Cats are the most affected animals and are commonly responsible for transmission to other species, including humans. The increase in cases of canine sporotrichosis requires its inclusion in the differential diagnosis of nodular-ulcerative lesions, along with cutaneous neoplasias and immune-mediated diseases

Rarity of monodominance in hyperdiverse Amazonian forests.

Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such "monodominant" forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (ATDN). Utilizing a simple defining metric of at least half of the trees ≥ 10 cm diameter belonging to one species, we found only a few occurrences of monodominance in Amazonia, and the phenomenon was not significantly linked to previously hypothesized life history traits such wood density, seed mass, ectomycorrhizal associations, or Rhizobium nodulation. In our analysis, coppicing (the formation of sprouts at the base of the tree or on roots) was the only trait significantly linked to monodominance. While at specific locales coppicing or ectomycorrhizal associations may confer a considerable advantage to a tree species and lead to its monodominance, very few species have these traits. Mining of the ATDN dataset suggests that monodominance is quite rare in Amazonia, and may be linked primarily to edaphic factors

Geographic patterns of tree dispersal modes in Amazonia and their ecological correlates

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MAim: To investigate the geographic patterns and ecological correlates in the geographic distribution of the most common tree dispersal modes in Amazonia (endozoochory, synzoochory, anemochory and hydrochory). We examined if the proportional abundance of these dispersal modes could be explained by the availability of dispersal agents (disperser-availability hypothesis) and/or the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits (resource-availability hypothesis). Time period: Tree-inventory plots established between 1934 and 2019. Major taxa studied: Trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 9.55 cm. Location: Amazonia, here defined as the lowland rain forests of the Amazon River basin and the Guiana Shield. Methods: We assigned dispersal modes to a total of 5433 species and morphospecies within 1877 tree-inventory plots across terra-firme, seasonally flooded, and permanently flooded forests. We investigated geographic patterns in the proportional abundance of dispersal modes. We performed an abundance-weighted mean pairwise distance (MPD) test and fit generalized linear models (GLMs) to explain the geographic distribution of dispersal modes. Results: Anemochory was significantly, positively associated with mean annual wind speed, and hydrochory was significantly higher in flooded forests. Dispersal modes did not consistently show significant associations with the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits. A lower dissimilarity in dispersal modes, resulting from a higher dominance of endozoochory, occurred in terra-firme forests (excluding podzols) compared to flooded forests. Main conclusions: The disperser-availability hypothesis was well supported for abiotic dispersal modes (anemochory and hydrochory). The availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits seems an unlikely explanation for the distribution of dispersal modes in Amazonia. The association between frugivores and the proportional abundance of zoochory requires further research, as tree recruitment not only depends on dispersal vectors but also on conditions that favour or limit seedling recruitment across forest types

Local hydrological conditions influence tree diversity and composition across the Amazon basin

Tree diversity and composition in Amazonia are known to be strongly determined by the water supplied by precipitation. Nevertheless, within the same climatic regime, water availability is modulated by local topography and soil characteristics (hereafter referred to as local hydrological conditions), varying from saturated and poorly drained to well-drained and potentially dry areas. While these conditions may be expected to influence species distribution, the impacts of local hydrological conditions on tree diversity and composition remain poorly understood at the whole Amazon basin scale. Using a dataset of 443 1-ha non-flooded forest plots distributed across the basin, we investigate how local hydrological conditions influence 1) tree alpha diversity, 2) the community-weighted wood density mean (CWM-wd) – a proxy for hydraulic resistance and 3) tree species composition. We find that the effect of local hydrological conditions on tree diversity depends on climate, being more evident in wetter forests, where diversity increases towards locations with well-drained soils. CWM-wd increased towards better drained soils in Southern and Western Amazonia. Tree species composition changed along local soil hydrological gradients in Central-Eastern, Western and Southern Amazonia, and those changes were correlated with changes in the mean wood density of plots. Our results suggest that local hydrological gradients filter species, influencing the diversity and composition of Amazonian forests. Overall, this study shows that the effect of local hydrological conditions is pervasive, extending over wide Amazonian regions, and reinforces the importance of accounting for local topography and hydrology to better understand the likely response and resilience of forests to increased frequency of extreme climate events and rising temperatures

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

Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities

Aim: Amazonia hosts more tree species from numerous evolutionary lineages, both young and ancient, than any other biogeographic region. Previous studies have shown that tree lineages colonized multiple edaphic environments and dispersed widely across Amazonia, leading to a hypothesis, which we test, that lineages should not be strongly associated with either geographic regions or edaphic forest types. Location: Amazonia. Taxon: Angiosperms (Magnoliids; Monocots; Eudicots). Methods: Data for the abundance of 5082 tree species in 1989 plots were combined with a mega-phylogeny. We applied evolutionary ordination to assess how phylogenetic composition varies across Amazonia. We used variation partitioning and Moran\u27s eigenvector maps (MEM) to test and quantify the separate and joint contributions of spatial and environmental variables to explain the phylogenetic composition of plots. We tested the indicator value of lineages for geographic regions and edaphic forest types and mapped associations onto the phylogeny. Results: In the terra firme and várzea forest types, the phylogenetic composition varies by geographic region, but the igapó and white-sand forest types retain a unique evolutionary signature regardless of region. Overall, we find that soil chemistry, climate and topography explain 24% of the variation in phylogenetic composition, with 79% of that variation being spatially structured (R$^{2}$ = 19% overall for combined spatial/environmental effects). The phylogenetic composition also shows substantial spatial patterns not related to the environmental variables we quantified (R$^{2}$ = 28%). A greater number of lineages were significant indicators of geographic regions than forest types. Main Conclusion: Numerous tree lineages, including some ancient ones (>66 Ma), show strong associations with geographic regions and edaphic forest types of Amazonia. This shows that specialization in specific edaphic environments has played a long-standing role in the evolutionary assembly of Amazonian forests. Furthermore, many lineages, even those that have dispersed across Amazonia, dominate within a specific region, likely because of phylogenetically conserved niches for environmental conditions that are prevalent within regions

Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities

AimAmazonia hosts more tree species from numerous evolutionary lineages, both young and ancient, than any other biogeographic region. Previous studies have shown that tree lineages colonized multiple edaphic environments and dispersed widely across Amazonia, leading to a hypothesis, which we test, that lineages should not be strongly associated with either geographic regions or edaphic forest types.LocationAmazonia.TaxonAngiosperms (Magnoliids; Monocots; Eudicots).MethodsData for the abundance of 5082 tree species in 1989 plots were combined with a mega-phylogeny. We applied evolutionary ordination to assess how phylogenetic composition varies across Amazonia. We used variation partitioning and Moran's eigenvector maps (MEM) to test and quantify the separate and joint contributions of spatial and environmental variables to explain the phylogenetic composition of plots. We tested the indicator value of lineages for geographic regions and edaphic forest types and mapped associations onto the phylogeny.ResultsIn the terra firme and várzea forest types, the phylogenetic composition varies by geographic region, but the igapó and white-sand forest types retain a unique evolutionary signature regardless of region. Overall, we find that soil chemistry, climate and topography explain 24% of the variation in phylogenetic composition, with 79% of that variation being spatially structured (R2 = 19% overall for combined spatial/environmental effects). The phylogenetic composition also shows substantial spatial patterns not related to the environmental variables we quantified (R2 = 28%). A greater number of lineages were significant indicators of geographic regions than forest types.Main ConclusionNumerous tree lineages, including some ancient ones (>66 Ma), show strong associations with geographic regions and edaphic forest types of Amazonia. This shows that specialization in specific edaphic environments has played a long-standing role in the evolutionary assembly of Amazonian forests. Furthermore, many lineages, even those that have dispersed across Amazonia, dominate within a specific region, likely because of phylogenetically conserved niches for environmental conditions that are prevalent within regions

Geographic patterns of tree dispersal modes in Amazonia and their ecological correlates

Aim: To investigate the geographic patterns and ecological correlates in the geographic distribution of the most common tree dispersal modes in Amazonia (endozoochory, synzoochory, anemochory and hydrochory). We examined if the proportional abundance of these dispersal modes could be explained by the availability of dispersal agents (disperser-availability hypothesis) and/or the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits (resource-availability hypothesis). Time period: Tree-inventory plots established between 1934 and 2019. Major taxa studied: Trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 9.55 cm. Location: Amazonia, here defined as the lowland rain forests of the Amazon River basin and the Guiana Shield. Methods: We assigned dispersal modes to a total of 5433 species and morphospecies within 1877 tree-inventory plots across terra-firme, seasonally flooded, and permanently flooded forests. We investigated geographic patterns in the proportional abundance of dispersal modes. We performed an abundance-weighted mean pairwise distance (MPD) test and fit generalized linear models (GLMs) to explain the geographic distribution of dispersal modes. Results: Anemochory was significantly, positively associated with mean annual wind speed, and hydrochory was significantly higher in flooded forests. Dispersal modes did not consistently show significant associations with the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits. A lower dissimilarity in dispersal modes, resulting from a higher dominance of endozoochory, occurred in terra-firme forests (excluding podzols) compared to flooded forests. Main conclusions: The disperser-availability hypothesis was well supported for abiotic dispersal modes (anemochory and hydrochory). The availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits seems an unlikely explanation for the distribution of dispersal modes in Amazonia. The association between frugivores and the proportional abundance of zoochory requires further research, as tree recruitment not only depends on dispersal vectors but also on conditions that favour or limit seedling recruitment across forest types