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

Comments on several xylophagous fungi of the Real Jardín Botánico of Madrid and kind of rotting produced by them.

[EN] Comments on the presence of 19 plant pathogenic fungi in the Madrid Botanic Garden are shown here, adding sorne notes to the kind of rotting they produce on the wood and suggestions to prevent or controlling the host penetration. Two more species are added to the catalogue of the Garden, Bjerkandera adusta and Coprinus truncorum, completing a total of 306 fungi.[ES] Se lleva a cabo un estudio de los hongos xilófagos que viven sobre los árboles del Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid, con comentarios referentes a 19 especies, y su forma de actuar en la degradación de la madera. Se aportan sugerencias acerca de cómo evitar la entrada del hongo en el hospedante y medidas de tratamiento, si son posibles, en caso de desarrollo de la micosis. Se añaden dos especies más al catálogo de hongos citados en el Jardín Botánico, Bjerkandera adusta y Coprinus tntllcorum, con lo que el número total de especies asciende a 306.Peer reviewe

Molecular Differentiation Of Leishmania Protozoarium Using Cds Quantum Dots As Biolabels

In this work we applied core-shell CdS/Cd(OH)2 quantum dots (QDs) as fluorescent labels in the Leishmania amazonensis protozoarium. The nanocrystals (8-9 nm) are obtained via colloidal synthesis in aqueous medium, with final pH=7 using sodium polyphosphate as the stabilizing agent. The surface of the particles is passivated with a cadmium hydroxide shell and the particle surface is functionalized with glutaraldehyde. The functionalized and non-functionalized particles were conjugated to Leishmania organisms in the promastigote form. The marked live organisms were visualized using confocal microscopy. The systems exhibit a differentiation of the emission color for the functionalized and non-functionalized particles suggesting different chemical interactions with the promastigote moieties. Two photon emision spectra (λexc=795nm) were obtained for the promastigotes labeled with the functionalized QDs showing a significant spectral change compared to the original QDs suspension. These spectral changes are discussed in terms of the possible energy deactivation processes.6097Medinitz, I.L., Tetsuo Uyeda, H., Goldman, E.R., Mattoussi, H., Quantum dot bioconjugates for imaging, labeling and sensing (2005) Nature Materials, 4, pp. 435-446Chen, F., Gerion, D., Fluorescent CdSe/ZnS nanocrystal-peptide conjugates for long-term, nontoxic imaging and nuclear targeting in living cells (2004) Nano Letters, 4 (10), pp. 27-1832Alivisatos, A.P., Semiconductor clusters, nanocrystals, and quantum dots (1996) Science, 271, pp. 933-937Medintz, I.L., Konnert, J.H., Clapp, A.R., Stanish, I., Twigg, M.E., Mattoussi, H., A fluorescence resonance energy transfer-derived structure of a quantum dot-protein bioconjugate nanoassembly PNAS, 101 (26), pp. 9612-9617Mamedova, N.N., Kotov, N.A., Rogach, A.L., Studer, J., Albumin-CdTe nanoparticle bioconjugates: Preparation, structure, and interunit energy transfer with antenna effect (2001) Nano Lett., 1, pp. 281-286Farias, P.M.A., Santos, B.S., De Menezes, F.D., Ferreira, R.C., Barjas-Castro, M.L., Castro, V., Moura Lima, P.R., Cesar, C.L., Investigation of red blood cell antigens with highly fluorescent and stable semiconductor quantum dots (2005) Journal of Biomedical Optics, 10 (4), pp. 440231-1044234Farias, P.M.A., Santos, B.S., De Menezes, F.D., Ferreira, R.C., Barjas-Castro, M.L., Castro, V., Moura Lima, P.R., Cesar, C.L., Core-shell CdS/Cd(OH)2 quantum dots: Synthesis and bioconjugation to target red cells antigens (2005) Journal of Microscopy, 219 (3), pp. 103-108Petrov, D.V., Santos, B.S., Pereira, G.A.L., Donegá, C.M., Size and band-gap dependences of the hiperpolarizability of CdxZnl-xS nanocrystals (2002) J. Phys. Chem. B, 106, pp. 5325-5334Santos, B.S., (2002) Obtenção de Nanopartículas de CdS em Sistemas Amorfos e a Investigação de suas Propriedades Ópticas Não-lineares em Meio Aquoso, , Doctoral Thesis, Recife, BrazilSolomons, G., Fhryle, C., (2004) Organic Chemistry, 7th Ed., , Wiley, New YorkGao, X.M., Rhodes, J., An essential role for constitutive Schiff base-forming ligands in antigen presentation to murine T cell clones (1990) The Journal of Immunology, 144 (8), pp. 2883-2890Silveira, T.G.V., Arraes, S.M.A.A., Bertolini, D.A., Teodora, U., Lonardoni, M.V.C., Roberto, A.C.B.S., Sobrinho, M.R., Shaw, J., Observações sobre o diagnóstico laboratorial e a epidemiologia da leishmaniose tegumentar no Estado do Paraná, sul do Brasil (1999) Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical, 32 (4), pp. 413-42

Uniaxial modeling of multivariant shape-memory materials with internal sublooping using dissipation functions

Models for the macroscopic behavior of Shape Memory Materials can be conveniently constructed within the Ziegler-Green-Naghdi framework where all the constitutive information is encoded in two ingredients: the free energy and the dissipation function. In a previous work, we have proposed various expressions for the basic functions suitable to model pseudoelasticity with complete transformations cycles. In this work we consider additional effects due to Martensite reorientation and to transformation reversal prior to transformation completion. The new constitutive model allows for the modeling of a variety of effects including: shape memory associated with thermally induced transformation, internal pseudoelastic subloops and the determination of limit cycles associated with repetitive stress cycling

Toxicidade do pericarpo da Jatropha curcas em ovinos

O pinhão manso (Jatropha curcas) é uma planta cultivada para a produção de biocombustível. O pericarpo é um coproduto com potencial para alimentação animal, e a presença de componentes tóxicos, principalmente ésteres de forbol, pode limitar sua utilização. Assim, objetivou-se avaliar a toxicidade do pericarpo. Vinte ovinos foram distribuídos em quatro grupos - um grupo-controle, que não recebeu a planta, e três experimentais, que receberam o pericarpo nas concentrações de 15% (G15), 30% (G30) e 45% (G45), durante 23 dias. Após o 10º dia, a ingestão do pericarpo promoveu redução do consumo de alimento, diarreia, desidratação e caquexia. Todos os grupos tratados apresentaram redução na concentração de fosfatase alcalina. Animais do G30 apresentaram redução na concentração de ureia e proteínas totais e elevação de potássio e sódio. No G45, houve aumento de aspartato aminotransferase, albumina, creatinina bilirrubina indireta e total. A avaliação anatomo-histopatológica revelou ascite, hidropericárdio, congestão no trato gastrintestinal e nos pulmões, edema pulmonar, aderências à parede torácica, degeneração hepática centrolobular e das células tubulares renais, pneumonia linfo-histiocitica e enterite linfoplasmocitária e histiocítica. À análise fitoquímica, constatou-se 0,3845mg de ésteres de forbol/g de pericarpo. Conclui-se que o pericarpo de J. curcas é tóxico, não sendo recomendado para alimentação de ovinos