Anthropogenic disturbance in tropical forests can double biodiversity loss from deforestation

Concerted political attention has focused on reducing deforestation1,2,3, and this remains the cornerstone of most biodiversity conservation strategies4,5,6. However, maintaining forest cover may not reduce anthropogenic forest disturbances, which are rarely considered in conservation programmes6. These disturbances occur both within forests, including selective logging and wildfires7,8, and at the landscape level, through edge, area and isolation effects9. Until now, the combined effect of anthropogenic disturbance on the conservation value of remnant primary forests has remained unknown, making it impossible to assess the relative importance of forest disturbance and forest loss. Here we address these knowledge gaps using a large data set of plants, birds and dung beetles (1,538, 460 and 156 species, respectively) sampled in 36 catchments in the Brazilian state of Pará. Catchments retaining more than 69–80% forest cover lost more conservation value from disturbance than from forest loss. For example, a 20% loss of primary forest, the maximum level of deforestation allowed on Amazonian properties under Brazil’s Forest Code5, resulted in a 39–54% loss of conservation value: 96–171% more than expected without considering disturbance effects. We extrapolated the disturbance-mediated loss of conservation value throughout Pará, which covers 25% of the Brazilian Amazon. Although disturbed forests retained considerable conservation value compared with deforested areas, the toll of disturbance outside Pará’s strictly protected areas is equivalent to the loss of 92,000–139,000 km2 of primary forest. Even this lowest estimate is greater than the area deforested across the entire Brazilian Amazon between 2006 and 2015 (ref. 10). Species distribution models showed that both landscape and within-forest disturbances contributed to biodiversity loss, with the greatest negative effects on species of high conservation and functional value. These results demonstrate an urgent need for policy interventions that go beyond the maintenance of forest cover to safeguard the hyper-diversity of tropical forest ecosystems

Second rate or a second chance? Assessing biomass and biodiversity recovery in regenerating Amazonian forests

© 2018 The Authors. Global Change Biology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Secondary forests (SFs) regenerating on previously deforested land account for large, expanding areas of tropical forest cover. Given that tropical forests rank among Earth’s most important reservoirs of carbon and biodiversity, SFs play an increasingly pivotal role in the carbon cycle and as potential habitat for forest biota. Nevertheless, their capacity to regain the biotic attributes of undisturbed primary forests (UPFs) remains poorly understood. Here, we provide a comprehensive assessment of SF recovery, using extensive tropical biodiversity, biomass, and environmental datasets. These data, collected in 59 naturally regenerating SFs and 30 co-located UPFs in the eastern Amazon, cover >1,600 large- and small-stemmed plant, bird, and dung beetles species and a suite of forest structure, landscape context, and topoedaphic predictors. After up to 40 years of regeneration, the SFs we surveyed showed a high degree of biodiversity resilience, recovering, on average among taxa, 88% and 85% mean UPF species richness and composition, respectively. Across the first 20 years of succession, the period for which we have accurate SF age data, biomass recovered at 1.2% per year, equivalent to a carbon uptake rate of 2.25 Mg/ha per year, while, on average, species richness and composition recovered at 2.6% and 2.3% per year, respectively. For all taxonomic groups, biomass was strongly associated with SF species distributions. However, other variables describing habitat complexity—canopy cover and understory stem density—were equally important occurrence predictors for most taxa. Species responses to biomass revealed a successional transition at approximately 75 Mg/ha, marking the influx of high-conservation-value forest species. Overall, our results show that naturally regenerating SFs can accumulate substantial amounts of carbon and support many forest species. However, given that the surveyed SFs failed to return to a typical UPF state, SFs are not substitutes for UPFs

On the influence of a Coulomb-like potential induced by the Lorentz symmetry breaking effects on the Harmonic Oscillator

In this work, we obtain bound states for a nonrelativistic spin-half neutral particle under the influence of a Coulomb-like potential induced by the Lorentz symmetry breaking effects. We present a new possible scenario of studying the Lorentz symmetry breaking effects on a nonrelativistic quantum system defined by a fixed space-like vector field parallel to the radial direction interacting with a uniform magnetic field along the z-axis. Furthermore, we also discuss the influence of a Coulomb-like potential induced by Lorentz symmetry violation effects on the two-dimensional harmonic oscillator.Comment: 14 pages, no figure, this work has been accepted for publication in The European Physical Journal Plu

First report on dung beetles in intra-Amazonian savannahs in Roraima, Brazil

This is the first study to address the dung beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) diversity in intra-Amazonian savannahs in the state of Roraima, Brazil. Our aim was to survey the dung beetle fauna associated with these savannahs (regionally called 'lavrado'), since little is known about the dung beetles from this environment. We conducted three field samples using pitfall traps baited with human dung in savannah areas near the city of Boa Vista during the rainy seasons of 1996, 1997, and 2008. We collected 383 individuals from ten species, wherein six have no previous record in intra-Amazonian savannahs. The most abundant species were Ontherus appendiculatus (Mannerheim, 1829), Canthidium aff. humerale (Germar, 1813), Dichotomius nisus (Olivier, 1789), and Pseudocanthon aff. xanthurus (Blanchard, 1846). We believe that knowing the dung beetles diversity associated with the intra-Amazonian savannahs is ideal for understanding the occurrence and distribution of these organisms in a highly threatened environment, it thus being the first step towards conservation strategy development

Whole organisms or pure compounds? entourage effect versus drug specificity

As the therapeutic use of sacred plants and fungi becomes increasingly accepted by Western medicine, a tug of war has been taking place between those who advocate the traditional consumption of whole organisms and those who defend exclusively the utilization of purified compounds. The attempt to reduce organisms to single active principles is challenged by the sheer complexity of traditional medicine. Ayahuasca, for example, is a concoction of at least two plant species containing multiple psychoactive substances with complex interactions. Similarly, cannabis contains dozens of psychoactive substances whose specific combinations in different strains correspond to different types of therapeutic and cognitive effects. The “entourage effect” refers to the synergistic effects of the multiple compounds present in whole organisms, which may potentiate clinical efficacy while attenuating side effects. In opposition to this view, mainstream pharmacology is adamant about the need to use purified substances, presumably more specific and safe. In this chapter, I will review the evidence on both sides to discuss the scientific, economic, and political implications of this controversy. The evidence indicates that it is time to embrace the therapeutic complexity of psychedelics.2019-07-3

Anthropogenic disturbance in tropical forests can double biodiversity loss from deforestation

© 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. Concerted political attention has focused on reducing deforestation, and this remains the cornerstone of most biodiversity conservation strategies. However, maintaining forest cover may not reduce anthropogenic forest disturbances, which are rarely considered in conservation programmes. These disturbances occur both within forests, including selective logging and wildfires, and at the landscape level, through edge, area and isolation effects. Until now, the combined effect of anthropogenic disturbance on the conservation value of remnant primary forests has remained unknown, making it impossible to assess the relative importance of forest disturbance and forest loss. Here we address these knowledge gaps using a large data set of plants, birds and dung beetles (1,538, 460 and 156 species, respectively) sampled in 36 catchments in the Brazilian state of Pará. Catchments retaining more than 69-80% forest cover lost more conservation value from disturbance than from forest loss. For example, a 20% loss of primary forest, the maximum level of deforestation allowed on Amazonian properties under Brazil's Forest Code, resulted in a 39-54% loss of conservation value: 96-171% more than expected without considering disturbance effects. We extrapolated the disturbance-mediated loss of conservation value throughout Pará, which covers 25% of the Brazilian Amazon. Although disturbed forests retained considerable conservation value compared with deforested areas, the toll of disturbance outside Pará's strictly protected areas is equivalent to the loss of 92,000-139,000 km2 of primary forest. Even this lowest estimate is greater than the area deforested across the entire Brazilian Amazon between 2006 and 2015 (ref. 10). Species distribution models showed that both landscape and within-forest disturbances contributed to biodiversity loss, with the greatest negative effects on species of high conservation and functional value. These results demonstrate an urgent need for policy interventions that go beyond the maintenance of forest cover to safeguard the hyper-diversity of tropical forest ecosystems

Transcultural adaptation and validation of the Stanford Presenteeism Scale for the evaluation of presenteeism for Brazilian Portuguese

OBJETIVO: descrever o processo de adaptação transcultural e validação para o português brasileiro do Stanford Presenteeism Scale. MÉTODOS: trata-se de estudo metodológico de adaptação cultural e validação de instrumento que envolveu 153 trabalhadores de enfermagem, incluindo seis aspectos de equivalência, obtidos pelas seguintes etapas: tradução, primeira versão de consenso, retrotradução, comitê de especialistas, pré-teste, estudo de confiabilidade teste/reteste e validade dimensional. RESULTADOS: a estabilidade dos itens variou de moderado a quase perfeito e da escala foi quase perfeito. Dois fatores foram identificados pela análise fatorial exploratória: o primeiro incluiu os aspectos físicos - trabalho finalizado e o segundo incluiu os aspectos psicológicos - distração evitada. CONCLUSÕES: os resultados sugerem adequação do instrumento na versão em português brasileiro, indicando seu uso no contexto da população de estudo e em populações semelhantes, contribuindo para o estudo de evidências que embasem estratégias que favoreçam as condições de saúde dos trabalhadores.OBJETIVO: describir el proceso de adaptación transcultural y validación para el portugués brasileño del Stanford Presenteeism Scale. MÉTODOS: se trata de un estudio metodológico de adaptación cultural y validación de instrumento en que participaron 153 trabajadores de enfermería, incluyendo seis aspectos de equivalencia obtenidos en las siguientes etapas: traducción, primera versión de consenso, retrotraducción, comité de especialistas, prueba piloto, estudio de confiabilidad prueba-reprueba y validez dimensional. RESULTADOS: La estabilidad de los ítems varió de moderado a casi perfecto y el de la escala fue casi perfecto. Dos factores fueron identificados por el análisis factorial exploratorio: el primero incluye los aspectos físicos - trabajo finalizado y el segundo a los aspectos psicológicos - concentración mantenida. CONCLUSIONES: los resultados sugieren que el instrumento es adecuado en la versión en portugués brasileño, indicando su uso en el contexto de la población de estudio y en poblaciones semejantes, contribuyendo así para el estudio de evidencias que contienen estrategias que favorezcan las condiciones de salud de los trabajadores.OBJECTIVE: describe the process of transcultural adaptation and validation of the Stanford Presenteeism Scale for Brazilian Portuguese. METHODS: Methodological study of the cultural adaptation and validation of the tool which involved 153 nursing staff and included six aspects of equivalence, obtained through the following stages: translation, first version of consent, retranslation, specialist committee, pre-test, study of test-retest credibleness and dimensional validity. RESULTS: The stability of the items varied from moderate to almost perfect and the sequence constancy was almost perfect. Two factors were identified through the exploratory fact analysis: the first one included the physical aspects - completing work; and the second one the psychological aspects - avoided distraction . CONCLUSIONS: the results suggest adequacy of the tool in the Brazilian Portuguese version, indicating its use in the context of the study group and in similar groups, contributing to the study of evidences which consolidate strategies that favor the health conditions of the jobholders