CONSUMO DE ANIMAIS SILVESTRES EM COMUNIDADES EXTRATIVISTAS DO ESTADO DO ACRE, AMAZÔNIA BRASILEIRA

Wildlife for subsistence is a nutritional source of high protein and is important for the livelihoods of traditional communities. It is imperative to know and record the main species, hunting techniques, and time frame used by the residents in order to understand the degree of threat and introduce conservation measures. This study was designed to list the main species of wild animals used as food resources and identify the main hunting techniques used by residents of the Cazumbá-Iracema extractive reserve in Sena Madureira, Acre, Brazil. The information was collected through semi-structured interviews. For each animal species cited, its respective use value (UV) was calculated. The registered hunting fauna were represented by 22 families and distributed over 40 species. Of the studied animals, wild pork (Pecari tajacu), deer (Mazama sp.), armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus), guan (Penelope jacquacu), inhambu-chicken (Tinamus guttatus), inhambu-macucau (Crypturellus undulatus), macaws (Ara spp.), parrots (Amazona spp.), and tortoises (Chelonoidis denticulata) were the most commonly consumed. The main collection methods consisted of ambush (42.7%) and shotguns (41.7%), especially in closed areas of forest. The hunting of wild animals is still an important food resource for rural communities, but the maintenance of local biodiversity is equally important. Thus, environmental education programs should be developed so that residents are cognizant of the use of natural resources without causing hunting pressure and imbalance in the ecosystem.Keywords: ethnozoology; fauna; livelihood; wildlife hunting.A fauna silvestre para subsistência é uma fonte nutricional de alto valor proteico e importante para subsistência de comunidades tradicionais. Conhecer as espécies cinegéticas, as técnicas e o período de captura são aspectos fundamentais para compreender a forma de uso, o grau de ameaça da caça e introduzir medidas de conservação. Este estudo objetivou listar as principais espécies de animais silvestres utilizados como recurso alimentar e identificar as principais técnicas de caça utilizadas pelos moradores da Reserva Extrativista Cazumbá-Iracema em Sena Madureira, Acre. As informações foram coletadas por meio de entrevistas com os moradores da reserva. Para cada espécie de animal citada foi calculado seu respectivo valor de uso (VU). A fauna cinegética registrada foi representada por 22 famílias, distribuídas em 40 espécies. Entre os animais mais consumidos estão, o porco-do-mato (Pecari tajacu), o veado (Mazama sp.), o tatu-galinha (Dasypus novemcinctus), o jacu (Penelope jacquacu), a inhambu-galinha (Tinamus guttatus), a inhambu-macucau (Crypturellus undulatus), a arara (Ara sp.), o papagaio (Amazona sp.) e o jabuti (Chelonoidis denticulata). Os principais métodos de caça consistiram principalmente em esperas (42,7%) e espingardas (41,7%), tendo preferência por áreas de florestas fechadas. A caça de animais silvestres ainda é um importante recurso alimentar para as comunidades rurais. Programas de educação ambiental devem ser desenvolvidos para que os moradores tenham mais conhecimento sobre como utilizar os recursos naturais sem causarem pressão de caça e, consequentemente, desequilíbrio no ecossistema.Palavras-chave: caça à vida selvagem, etnozoologia, fauna, subsistência

The zooplankton of tropical streams: is it determinism or stochasticity that drives the spatial and temporal patterns in community structure?

The comprehension of the ecological structure and the functioning of natural and/or impacted lotic ecosystems is the purpose of most studies concerning rivers and streams. This study aimed to investigate the main factors influencing the zooplankton community organization in nine impacted tropical streams of three different sub-basins of the Cinzas River basin, Paraná state, Brazil. We tested the hypothesis that macro-factors such as productivity, current velocity, habitat structure, and stream order and stretches (headwater, middle and mouth), are the main factors structuring the zooplankton community in tropical streams. Zooplankton was represented by 101 taxa, mainly testate amoebae, followed by rotifers, cladocerans and copep- ods. Results showed that the greatest differences in physical and chemical characteristics and those related to zooplankton community structure were observed among the three sub-basins studied. However, we found that these differences were not related to the environmental heterogeneity, but were rather influenced mainly by spatial factors related to stochasticity in the structuring of planktonic communities. Thus, our results suggest that connectivity between environments within the same sub-basin, associated with random processes driven by dispersal, may determine the existence or not of spatial pat- terns, among stream order or stretches, and temporal patterns, between seasons, in the community attributes here analyzed

Functional feeding groups of Protist Ciliates (Protist: Ciliophora) on a neotropical flood plain

Functional diversity approaches have been an efficient tool in gaining a better understanding of how environmental conditions selected species in a given environment and how they share resources, linking ecological processes to biodiversity patterns. Although most of the protist ciliates are not highly specialized, functional feeding groups with species which ingest similar food can be identified. Thus, this study aimed to compare the abundance of different Functional Feeding Groups (FFG) of ciliates in environments with different hydrodynamic conditions (lotic and lentic) in different hydrological periods (high and low water) in a neotropical flood plain. The samples for analysis of the community of ciliates were taken in March and September of 2010 and 2011, at the subsurface of 12 different hydrodynamic environments. The results of an RDA showed a spatial and temporal segregation of the sampling units, based on the abundance and occurrence of the FFG. In addition, a clear influence of food resources on the structuring of functional ciliate guilds was evidenced. Thus, there were both temporal (hydrological periods) and spatial (different hydrodynamic environments) differences in the distribution of the FFG, with a clear separation of the FFGs between the years studied. In summary, the results of the categorization of species of ciliates in FFG responded satisfactorily suggesting fluctuations in different food resources, which reinforces the idea that the grouping of species by functional characteristics can be a good indicator of the responses of organisms to environmental fluctuations.The Functional Feeding Groups (FFGs) of ciliates responded the fluctuations of food resources, since these vary according to seasonality and types of environments, reinforcing that the FFGs can be a great indicator of the responses to environmental fluctuations, helping to understand the structure communities in freshwater environments

Effects of warming on the structure of aquatic communities in tropical bromeliad microecosystems

Abstract Freshwaters are among the most vulnerable ecosystems to climate warming, with projected temperature increases over the coming decades leading to significant losses of aquatic biodiversity. Experimental studies that directly warm entire natural ecosystems in the tropics are needed, for understanding the disturbances on aquatic communities. Therefore, we conducted an experiment to test the impacts of predicted future warming on density, alpha diversity, and beta diversity of freshwater aquatic communities, inhabiting natural microecosystems—Neotropical tank bromeliads. Aquatic communities within the tanks bromeliads were experimentally exposed to warming, with temperatures ranging from 23.58 to 31.72°C. Linear regression analysis was used to test the impacts of warming. Next, distance‐based redundancy analysis was performed to assess how warming might alter total beta diversity and its components. This experiment was conducted across a gradient of habitat size (bromeliad water volume) and availability of detrital basal resources. A combination of the highest detritus biomass and higher experimental temperatures resulted in the greatest density of flagellates. However, the density of flagellates declined in bromeliads with higher water volume and lower detritus biomass. Moreover, the combination of the highest water volume and high temperature reduced density of copepods. Finally, warming changed microfauna species composition, mostly through species substitution (βrepl component of total beta‐diversity). These findings indicate that warming strongly structures freshwater communities by reducing or increasing densities of different aquatic communities groups. It also enhances beta‐diversity, and many of these effects are modulated by habitat size or detrital resources