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

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees

Parâmetros ruminais e síntese de proteína metabolizável em bovinos de corte sob suplementação com proteinados contendo diversos níveis de proteína bruta Ruminal fermentation characteristics and protein fraction effects on metabolizable protein synthesis of beef cattle fed different levels of crude protein

Avaliaram-se os efeitos dos níveis de nitrogênio de suplementos proteicos sobre as concentrações de nitrogênio amoniacal (N-NH3) e ácidos graxos voláteis (AGV) e o pH em bovinos de corte em pastagem de capim-marandu (Brachiaria brizantha, cv. Marandu). Foram realizadas estimativas da síntese microbiana, do aporte de proteína nãodegradável no rúmen (PNDR) e proteína endógena e das suas contribuições no pool de proteína metabolizável (PM). Quatro bovinos Nelore com 395 &plusmn; 9 kg, fistulados no rúmen, foram utilizados nas medidas dos parâmetros ruminais e nas avaliações da degradabilidade, da cinética ruminal e das estimativas de síntese microbiana em um delineamento quadrado latino 4 &#215;4. Suplementos com 30, 40 ou 50% de proteína bruta (PB) foram fornecidos na quantidade de 400 g/animal.dia para comparação a um grupo controle, sem suplementação proteica. Os animais foram mantidos em pastagens de Brachiaria brizantha, cv. Marandu, distribuídos em quatro piquetes com área de 1,0 ha cada, com oferta do suplemento e retirada das sobras, realizada diariamente. As concentrações de N-NH3 nos animais que receberam o suplemento com 50% PB foram superiores às observadas naqueles sob suplementação com 40% PB e no grupo controle, mas foram semelhantes às observadas no grupo sob suplementação com 30% PB. As concentrações de AGV no grupo sob suplementação com 30% PB foram superiores às observadas no grupo controle e semelhantes às obtidas com suplementação com 40 e 50% PB. O pH não diferiu entre os grupos. A estimativa de oferta de proteína microbiana e de PNDR foi maior para os animais sob suplementação com proteína em relação à observada no grupo controle.<br>The effects of nitrogen levels of protein supplements were evaluated on the concentrations of ammonical nitrogen (N-NH3), volatile fatty acids (VFA's) concentrations and pH in beef cattle grazing Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu. The microbial protein synthesis, ruminal undegradable protein (RUP) and endogenous crude protein (ECP) and their contributions to the pool of metabolizable protein (MP). Four Nelore steer, 395 &plusmn; 9 kg, fitted with ruminal cannulas, were used to evaluate ruminal parameters, degradability, ruminal kinetics and microbial synthesis in a 4 &#215;4 Latin square design. The animals were supplied with 400g/head/day of supplements containing 30, 40, and 50% crude protein (CP) for comparison with a control group without protein supplementation (C). The animals grazed Brachiaria brizantha cv Marandu, distributed in four one-hectare paddocks where the supplements were offered and the orts removed daily. The N-NH3 levels in the animals that received 50% CP were higher than those observed in animals receiving 40% CP and C, but were similar to the levels observed in the animals supplemented with 30% CP. The VFA concentrations in the group supplemented with 30% PB were higher than the control treatment (C) and similar to those obtained with 40 and 50% CP supplementation. The pH did not differ among the groups. The microbial synthesis and RUP were greater for the animals that received protein supplementation compared to the control treatment