First avifaunal survey of a Cerrado dry forest enclave on the right bank of the São Francisco River, Minas Gerais, Brazil, with insights on geographic variation of some species

Cerrado dry forest enclaves have been treated as an endemic bird area. In the last years, some avifaunal surveys have been conducted in dry forests on the left bank of the São Francisco River, eastern Brazil. Nevertheless, there is a gap of detailed ornithological surveys in the Cerrado dry forest enclaves on the right bank of this river. Here, we present the first avifaunal survey of a Cerrado dry forest enclave on the right bank of the São Francisco River. The study area, named “Curral de Pedras”, comprises a dry forest enclave and other associated habitats in central Minas Gerais state, southeastern Brazil. We recorded 172 bird species; nine taxa have their ranges strongly associated to the Caatinga; six present their ranges associated to the Atlantic Forest and one is typical of the Cerrado. Important records are those of Campylopterus calcirupicola, a recently described species associated with dry forests of central Brazil, and Celeus ochraceus, collected in its southernmost range. Furthermore, we obtained specimens that present intermediate phenotypes between the following woodcreeper species: Lepidocolaptes squamatus / L. wagleri and Xiphocolaptes albicollis / X. falcirostris. Those records reinforce the need of further sampling and collecting activities in those dry forest enclaves aiming future researches in taxonomy, geographic variation, and phylogeography

Aspectos estruturais e similaridade florística entre fragmentos de floresta tropical seca com diferentes históricos de manejo no norte de minas gerais, Brasil

In order to produce useful knowledge to the initiatives of protection and management of forest fragments, more specifically for tropical dry forests which suffer with frequent anthropic activities, and due to the lack of specific studies, this article aimed describe the structure and the floristic similarity among three areas of dry forest with different management histories. The study was developed in Capitão Enéas municipality, Northern Minas Gerais, Brazil, where three fragments were evaluated, being one in regeneration for 30 years, another submitted to occasional fire and the third with selective cut in small scale. The sampling was developed through the point quarter method considering all the alive phanerophyte individuals with circumference at breast height (CBH) ≥ 15 cm. In the three fragments, 512 individuals, distributed in 60 species, 47 genera, and 23 families were sampled. The most representative families were Fabaceae (26), Anacardiaceae (4), Bignoniaceae (3) and Combretaceae (3). However, fourteen families were represented by only one species. Only eight species were common to all fragments - Myracrodruon urundeuva standed out with 26.9% of all sampled individuals - while a great number of species were exclusive of each fragment. The floristic and structural differences between the fragments are possibly related to the history and intensity of management in each area besides the topography variations and the presence or absence of limestone outcrops. These results show the importanceof each fragment, indicating that the loss of anyone would cause negative impacts on the regional flora and consequently to the associated biodiversity

Competitividade e Isomorfismo: análise do perfil estrutural e financeiro-contábil de grandes cooperativas agropecuárias brasileiras

Due to changes in agribusiness, agricultural cooperatives, guided by local operations, and with low added value, have been looking for new ways of structuring. We aimed to identify the forms of structuration and financial-accounting peculiarities of agricultural cooperatives with higher volume of sales in the Brazilian context under the point of view of noncooperatives in the same segment. The work started with a documentary analysis and an accounting technique, named vertical analysis; in the next step, we used Mann-Whitney test to compare the formative lines of DRE of the a set of 15 cooperatives and 14 non-cooperative companies discriminated as belonging to organizations with higher sales in agricultural production in 2013. The results confirm the extent of the cooperatives structure in relation to the business portfolio, given the remarkable activities in concentric and conglomerate diversification. We observed the competitive parity between the business segments analyzed, mainly because there were no differences in the final rates of “profitability” when we compare the two cases. In addition, we can apparently refute the idea that this competitive parity is given by an orientation excessively directed to the market, at the expense of a social orientation, given the differentiating points externalized