A vocação da Amazônia é florestal e a criação de novos estados pode levar ao aumento do desflorestamento na Amazônia brasileira

The state of Pará has a rich diversity of ecosystems. However, it is one of the states that the most contribute with the deforestation of Amazonian. Actually, 22% of the state was deforested. Currently, a new policy of occupation is being studied for the Amazonian, based on the creation of new states. The creation of new states can increase deforestation in the Amazonian, especially in regions where the agricultural frontier and minerals activities are intense such as the state of Para. This study compares the changes of the representativeness of protected areas and deforestation, considering the proposed of division of the Para in three new states. The creation of new states can lead to a reduction or elimination of the protected areas resulting in the increase of the deforestation. Another serious consequence of the creation of new states will be the extinction of the Ecological-Economic Zoning of Para, an important instrument of public policy. The creation of new states must be preceded by studies involving the evaluation of the environmental, social and economic variables. One of the most serious consequences if it is not taken into consideration is the creation of a legal vacuum that will be used to increase the pressure on natural resources of the Amazon.O Pará detém uma rica diversidade de ecossistemas. Contudo, é um dos Estados que mais contribuem para o desmatamento na Amazônia. Atualmente, 22% do Estado foram desflorestados. Uma nova política de ocupação está sendo estudada para a Amazônia, baseada na criação de novos Estados. A criação de novos Estados pode aumentar o desmatamento na Amazônia, especialmente em regiões onde a fronteira agropecuária e mineraria é intensa como no Pará. Este estudo compara as mudanças da representatividade das áreas protegidas e do desmatamento, considerando a proposta de divisão do Estado do Pará em três novos Estados. A criação dos novos Estados pode levar a uma diminuição ou mesmo eliminação de algumas unidades de conservação, o que terá como consequência direta o aumento do desmatamento. Outra consequência grave da criação de novos Estados será a extinção do Zoneamento Ecológico-Econômico do Pará, um importante instrumento de políticas públicas. A criação de novos Estados deve ser precedida de estudos que envolvam uma avaliação criteriosa dos impactos ambientais, sociais e econômicos. Umas das consequências mais graves se isso não for levado em consideração é a criação de um vácuo jurídico que será aproveitado para aumentar a pressão nos recursos naturais da Amazônia

Variation in stem mortality rates determines patterns of above-ground biomass in Amazonian forests: implications for dynamic global vegetation models

This is the final version of the article. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Understanding the processes that determine above-ground biomass (AGB) in Amazonian forests is important for predicting the sensitivity of these ecosystems to environmental change and for designing and evaluating dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs). AGB is determined by inputs from woody productivity [woody net primary productivity (NPP)] and the rate at which carbon is lost through tree mortality. Here, we test whether two direct metrics of tree mortality (the absolute rate of woody biomass loss and the rate of stem mortality) and/or woody NPP, control variation in AGB among 167 plots in intact forest across Amazonia. We then compare these relationships and the observed variation in AGB and woody NPP with the predictions of four DGVMs. The observations show that stem mortality rates, rather than absolute rates of woody biomass loss, are the most important predictor of AGB, which is consistent with the importance of stand size structure for determining spatial variation in AGB. The relationship between stem mortality rates and AGB varies among different regions of Amazonia, indicating that variation in wood density and height/diameter relationships also influences AGB. In contrast to previous findings, we find that woody NPP is not correlated with stem mortality rates and is weakly positively correlated with AGB. Across the four models, basin-wide average AGB is similar to the mean of the observations. However, the models consistently overestimate woody NPP and poorly represent the spatial patterns of both AGB and woody NPP estimated using plot data. In marked contrast to the observations, DGVMs typically show strong positive relationships between woody NPP and AGB. Resolving these differences will require incorporating forest size structure, mechanistic models of stem mortality and variation in functional composition in DGVMs.This paper is a product of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme AMAZALERT project (282664). The field data used in this study have been generated by the RAINFOR network, which has been supported by a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant, the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme projects 283080, ‘GEOCARBON’; and 282664, ‘AMAZALERT’; ERC grant ‘Tropical Forests in the Changing Earth System’), and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Urgency, Consortium and Standard Grants ‘AMAZONICA’ (NE/F005806/1), ‘TROBIT’ (NE/D005590/1) and ‘Niche Evolution of South American Trees’ (NE/I028122/1). Additional data were included from the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM) Network – a collaboration between Conservation International, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Smithsonian Institution and the Wildlife Conservation Society, and partly funded by these institutions, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and other donors. Fieldwork was also partially supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico of Brazil (CNPq), project Programa de Pesquisas Ecológicas de Longa Duração (PELD-403725/2012-7). A.R. acknowledges funding from the Helmholtz Alliance ‘Remote Sensing and Earth System Dynamics’; L.P., M.P.C. E.A. and M.T. are partially funded by the EU FP7 project ‘ROBIN’ (283093), with co-funding for E.A. from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs (KB-14-003-030); B.C. [was supported in part by the US DOE (BER) NGEE-Tropics project (subcontract to LANL). O.L.P. is supported by an ERC Advanced Grant and is a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award holder. P.M. acknowledges support from ARC grant FT110100457 and NERC grants NE/J011002/1, and T.R.B. acknowledges support from a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship

An estimate of the number of tropical tree species

The high species richness of tropical forests has long been recognized, yet there remains substantial uncertainty regarding the actual number of tropical tree species. Using a pantropical tree inventory database from closed canopy forests, consisting of 657,630 trees belonging to 11,371 species, we use a fitted value of Fisher’s alpha and an approximate pantropical stem total to estimate the minimum number of tropical forest tree species to fall between ∼40,000 and ∼53,000, i.e. at the high end of previous estimates. Contrary to common assumption, the Indo-Pacific region was found to be as species-rich as the Neotropics, with both regions having a minimum of ∼19,000–25,000 tree species. Continental Africa is relatively depauperate with a minimum of ∼4,500–6,000 tree species. Very few species are shared among the African, American, and the Indo-Pacific regions. We provide a methodological framework for estimating species richness in trees that may help refine species richness estimates of tree-dependent taxa

Autoantibodies against type I IFNs in patients with life-threatening COVID-19

Interindividual clinical variability in the course of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is vast. We report that at least 101 of 987 patients with life-threatening coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia had neutralizing immunoglobulin G (IgG) autoantibodies (auto-Abs) against interferon-w (IFN-w) (13 patients), against the 13 types of IFN-a (36), or against both (52) at the onset of critical disease; a few also had auto-Abs against the other three type I IFNs. The auto-Abs neutralize the ability of the corresponding type I IFNs to block SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. These auto-Abs were not found in 663 individuals with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and were present in only 4 of 1227 healthy individuals. Patients with auto-Abs were aged 25 to 87 years and 95 of the 101 were men. A B cell autoimmune phenocopy of inborn errors of type I IFN immunity accounts for life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men

Phylogenetic classification of the world's tropical forests

Knowledge about the biogeographic affinities of the world’s tropical forests helps to better understand regional differences in forest structure, diversity, composition, and dynamics. Such understanding will enable anticipation of region-specific responses to global environmental change. Modern phylogenies, in combination with broad coverage of species inventory data, now allow for global biogeographic analyses that take species evolutionary distance into account. Here we present a classification of the world’s tropical forests based on their phylogenetic similarity. We identify five principal floristic regions and their floristic relationships: (i) Indo-Pacific, (ii) Subtropical, (iii) African, (iv) American, and (v) Dry forests. Our results do not support the traditional neo- versus paleotropical forest division but instead separate the combined American and African forests from their Indo-Pacific counterparts. We also find indications for the existence of a global dry forest region, with representatives in America, Africa, Madagascar, and India. Additionally, a northern-hemisphere Subtropical forest region was identified with representatives in Asia and America, providing support for a link between Asian and American northern-hemisphere forests.</p

Autoantibodies neutralizing type I IFNs are present in ~4% of uninfected individuals over 70 years old and account for ~20% of COVID-19 deaths

Circulating autoantibodies (auto-Abs) neutralizing high concentrations (10 ng/ml; in plasma diluted 1:10) of IFN-α and/or IFN-ω are found in about 10% of patients with critical COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pneumonia but not in individuals with asymptomatic infections. We detect auto-Abs neutralizing 100-fold lower, more physiological, concentrations of IFN-α and/or IFN-ω (100 pg/ml; in 1:10 dilutions of plasma) in 13.6% of 3595 patients with critical COVID-19, including 21% of 374 patients >80 years, and 6.5% of 522 patients with severe COVID-19. These antibodies are also detected in 18% of the 1124 deceased patients (aged 20 days to 99 years; mean: 70 years). Moreover, another 1.3% of patients with critical COVID-19 and 0.9% of the deceased patients have auto-Abs neutralizing high concentrations of IFN-β. We also show, in a sample of 34,159 uninfected individuals from the general population, that auto-Abs neutralizing high concentrations of IFN-α and/or IFN-ω are present in 0.18% of individuals between 18 and 69 years, 1.1% between 70 and 79 years, and 3.4% >80 years. Moreover, the proportion of individuals carrying auto-Abs neutralizing lower concentrations is greater in a subsample of 10,778 uninfected individuals: 1% of individuals 80 years. By contrast, auto-Abs neutralizing IFN-β do not become more frequent with age. Auto-Abs neutralizing type I IFNs predate SARS-CoV-2 infection and sharply increase in prevalence after the age of 70 years. They account for about 20% of both critical COVID-19 cases in the over 80s and total fatal COVID-19 cases

Autoantibodies against type I IFNs in patients with life-threatening COVID-19

International audienceInterindividual clinical variability in the course of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is vast. We report that at least 101 of 987 patients with life-threatening coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia had neutralizing immunoglobulin G (IgG) autoantibodies (auto-Abs) against interferon-ω (IFN-ω) (13 patients), against the 13 types of IFN-α (36), or against both (52) at the onset of critical disease; a few also had auto-Abs against the other three type I IFNs. The auto-Abs neutralize the ability of the corresponding type I IFNs to block SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. These auto-Abs were not found in 663 individuals with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and were present in only 4 of 1227 healthy individuals. Patients with auto-Abs were aged 25 to 87 years and 95 of the 101 were men. A B cell autoimmune phenocopy of inborn errors of type I IFN immunity accounts for life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men