Revisão do Conhecimento sobre os Mamíferos Aquáticos da Costa Norte do Brasil

The Brazilian north coast represents a new frontier in several fields of knowledge. The aquatic mammals of the Brazilian northern coast were poorly studied until recently. Recent efforts promoted by Projeto Piatam Oceano are changing the scenario. New research groups on aquatic mammals were formed and are conducting a large survey of this unique group of mammals. A total of 22 species of aquatic mammals were recorded along the Brazilian northern region. It should be emphasized the rediscovery of the Antillean manatee in several localities along the coasts of Amapá, Pará and Maranhão states. On the other hand, the estuarine dolphin is widely distributed along the Amazonian coast but is frequently by-caught in gill nets fisheries throughout the northern coast. The intense use of love charms has also a negative effect on these populations and should be better evaluated. An awareness program will be implemented as a first step for changing attitude towards the aquatic mammals of the northern coast.A costa norte do Brasil representa uma nova fronteira para o avanço do conhecimento sobre a fauna de mamíferos aquáticos. A ausência de dados pretéritos sobre os mamíferos aquáticos nessa região e a própria dificuldade logística de monitoramento resultou, até muito recentemente, numa lacuna de conhecimento. A fim de reverter este quadro, o Projeto Piatam Oceano vem incentivando a formação de grupos de pesquisa sobre mamíferos aquáticos da costa amazônica. Como resultado dos esforços recentes, foi reunido um conjunto relevante de informações inéditas ou complementares sobre as 22 espécies de mamíferos aquáticos registradas até o momento na região. Destacam-se as áreas de ocorrência do peixe-boi-marinho no litoral dos Estados do Maranhão, Pará e Amapá, as quais poderiam garantir a manutenção destas populações criticamente ameaçadas. Merece destaque ainda a ocorrência do boto-cinza em toda costa amazônica e sua problemática de interação com a pesca artesanal e o comércio de peças anatômicas. Sugere-se uma ampla campanha de conscientização e a promoção de campanhas educativas visando uma nova tomada de atitude em relação aos mamíferos aquáticos e seus hábitats, respeitando os valores tradicionais e o conhecimento etnoecológico das comunidades costeiras

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 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 or ganism 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 ne glected 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 lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio