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

Análise da rede de colaboração científica sobre biogás

O biogás é um importante tipo de biocombustível obtido a partir de fontes de energia renováveis. Ele pode ser produzido a partir de resíduos urbanos ou industriais e também por decomposição de resíduos orgânicos ou animais. Por esta razão, a quantidade de pesquisas e publicações sobre biogás teve um rápido crescimento nas últimas décadas. Além disso, o número de artigos escritos em coautoria aumentou significativamente. Desta forma, este trabalho construiu a rede de colaboração científica sobre o biogás em um período de 65 anos, ou seja, 1945-2010. Os documentos foram recuperados a partir da base de dados do Web of Knowledge do Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). As consultas foram feitas buscando-se o nome biogás no título do artigo. Assim, três redes foram construídas: autores, instituições e países. No período estudado, foram analisados 1238 trabalhos. Estes documentos foram publicados por 2852 autores diferentes em 1000 instituições distintas pertencentes a 89 países. Os cinco principais países foram a Índia, Alemanha, Estados Unidos da América, China e Dinamarca, respectivamente. Uma observação interessante é que cerca de 85% das publicações tinham pelo menos um tipo de coautoria entre autores, instituições ou países

Rede de colaboração científica sobre oleaginosas envolvidas na produção do biodiesel

RESUMO Redes de colaboração científica representam estratégias para compartilhamento de informações e novos conhecimentos sobre as comunidades acadêmicas. Este tipo de rede pode identificar os agentes que compõem a rede e a intensidade da ligação que une os atores. Por esta razão, neste trabalho foram identificadas as relações entre os autores, países e instituições em publicações sobre seis oleaginosas pertencentes à cadeia produtiva do biodiesel. As oleaginosas selecionados foram soja, pinhão-manso, dendê, canola, girassol e mamona. Nesta rede, os vértices são autores, países ou instituições e as arestas são obtidas por meio da análise publicação. Portanto, se dois cientistas são coautores em uma publicação, eles estão conectados. As publicações sobre estas seis oleaginosas foram recuperadas da base de dados do Web of Knowledge de 1945 a 2011. As consultas foram feitas no modo de Pesquisa Avançada, procurando o nome da oleaginosa no título da publicação e a palavra biodiesel no título, resumo ou palavras-chave. Para cada oleaginosa, três redes foram construídas: autores, países e instituições. No período estudado, foram analisados um total de 1378 publicações. Quatro países (Brasil, Índia, China e Estados Unidos da América) participaram das publicações sobre todas as oleaginosas estudadas

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