USO DO SOLO E COBERTURA VEGETAL NA BACIA DO ALTO CURSO DO RIO UBERABA

As informações geradas do meio físico, levando em consideração a declividade, solos e uso das terras, permitem conhecer as características e as condições das áreas, fornecendo subsídios para atividades de análise ambiental e planejamento conservacionista. O presente estudo teve objetivo de delimitar, identificar e avaliar as diferentes categorias de uso do solo e cobertura vegetal na área bacia do alto curso do rio Uberaba, numa área de aproximadamente 528 km2, localizadas entre as coordenadas geográficas 19° 30’ e 19o 45’ sul e 47o 38’ e 48o 00’ oeste de Greenwich. Utilizou-se técnicas de geoprocessamento e sensoriamento remoto para mapeamento da bacia em estudo. A cobertura vegetal natural remanescente é caracterizada pelos seguintes tipos: mata/cerradão (galeria, topo e encostas), cerrado, campo cerrado (sujo) que juntos perfazem o equivalente a 30.363,57 hectares (57% da área); A vegetação natural vem sendo substituída em sua maior parte por pastagens e cultura anuais; A área em estudo é caracterizada em sua maior parte pelo seu relevo plano com baixas declividades; Os canais de 1º e 2º ordem dos córregos que nascem nas bordas da chapada é que mantém o volume de água do rio Uberaba no período seco

Traffic control with autopilot as an alternative to decrease soil compaction in sugarcane areas

Control the machinery traffic through autopilot and use the combined spacing of two rows are possible solutions to mitigate soil compaction problems. The objective of this study was to evaluate traffic control using autopilot in order to soften the problem of soil compaction in mechanically-harvested sugarcane areas. The study was conducted in two experimental areas belonging to Usina Santa Fe, in New Europe, São Paulo, Brazil. The design was a randomized block design, with 3 treatments: T1 = sugarcane planted in single spacing and without autopilot (1.50 m); T2 = sugarcane planted in single line spacing and managed on autopilot; T3 = sugarcane planted under combined spacing of two rows (1.50 × 0.90 m) and managed with autopilot, with 4 replications. Was collected samples in the wheel row (WR) and the seedbed (SB), which was located next to the plant row to, in layers from 0.00 to 0.15 and 0.15-0.30 m. It was observed that the seed bed area showed higher porosity in the treatments with autopilot in the second year of evaluation. There were no differences in pore sizes and shapes between the treatments in the two years studied. The large and complex pores were observed to be reduced in the second evaluation year.The authors thank the Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP) for funding the research, through projects linked to the processes 2012 / 21094-0 and 2012 / 144-6

Erythrina velutina Willd. alkaloids : piecing biosynthesis together from transcriptome analysis and metabolite profiling of seeds and leaves

Introduction: Natural products of pharmaceutical interest often do not reach the drug market due to the associated low yields and difficult extraction. Knowledge of biosynthetic pathways is a key element in the development of biotechnological strategies for plant specialized metabolite production. Erythrina species are mainly used as central nervous system depressants in folk medicine and are important sources of bioactive tetracyclic benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs), which can act on several pathology-related biological targets. Objectives: In this sense, in an unprecedented approach used with a non-model Fabaceae species grown in its unique arid natural habitat, a combined transcriptome and metabolome analyses (seeds and leaves) is presented. Methods: The Next Generation Sequencing-based transcriptome (de novo RNA sequencing) was carried out in a NextSeq 500 platform. Regarding metabolite profiling, the High-resolution Liquid Chromatography was coupled to DAD and a micrOTOF-QII mass spectrometer by using electrospray ionization (ESI) and Time of Flight (TOF) analyzer. The tandem MS/MS data were processed and analyzed through Molecular Networking approach. Results: This detailed macro and micromolecular approach applied to seeds and leaves of E. velutina revealed 42 alkaloids, several of them unique. Based on the combined evidence, 24 gene candidates were put together in a putative pathway leading to the singular alkaloid diversity of this species. Conclusion: Overall, these results could contribute by indicating potential biotechnological targets formodulation of erythrina alkaloids biosynthesis as well as improve molecular databases with omic data from a non-model medicinal plant, and reveal an interesting chemical diversity of Erythrina BIA harvested in Caatinga

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

The 13th Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-IV Survey Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) began observations in July 2014. It pursues three core programs: APOGEE-2,MaNGA, and eBOSS. In addition, eBOSS contains two major subprograms: TDSS and SPIDERS. This paper describes the first data release from SDSS-IV, Data Release 13 (DR13), which contains new data, reanalysis of existing data sets and, like all SDSS data releases, is inclusive of previously released data. DR13 makes publicly available 1390 spatially resolved integral field unit observations of nearby galaxies from MaNGA,the first data released from this survey. It includes new observations from eBOSS, completing SEQUELS. In addition to targeting galaxies and quasars, SEQUELS also targeted variability-selected objects from TDSS and X-ray selected objects from SPIDERS. DR13 includes new reductions ofthe SDSS-III BOSS data, improving the spectrophotometric calibration and redshift classification. DR13 releases new reductions of the APOGEE-1data from SDSS-III, with abundances of elements not previously included and improved stellar parameters for dwarf stars and cooler stars. For the SDSS imaging data, DR13 provides new, more robust and precise photometric calibrations. Several value-added catalogs are being released in tandem with DR13, in particular target catalogs relevant for eBOSS, TDSS, and SPIDERS, and an updated red-clump catalog for APOGEE.This paper describes the location and format of the data now publicly available, as well as providing references to the important technical papers that describe the targeting, observing, and data reduction. The SDSS website, http://www.sdss.org, provides links to the data, tutorials and examples of data access, and extensive documentation of the reduction and analysis procedures. DR13 is the first of a scheduled set that will contain new data and analyses from the planned ~6-year operations of SDSS-IV.PostprintPeer reviewe