Índice de vegetação como subsídio na identificação de áreas com potenciais a desertificação

A desertificação é um problema ambiental que afeta centenas de hectares de terras localizadas nas regiões secas de várias partes do planeta. Para identificação das áreas em processo de desertificação vários mecanismos vêm sendo empregados, entre eles o sensoriamento remoto. Neste contexto, o objetivo deste trabalho é identificar as áreas com potenciais à desertificação nos municípios de Santa Maria da Boa Vista e Lagoa Grande, Pernambuco, através do SAVI (Soil Ajusted Vegetation Index). Para isto, foram empregadas duas imagens obtidas pelos satélites Landsat 5 e Landsat 8 referente aos anos de 2005 e 2015, respectivamente. Os resultados indicam que os dois municípios apresentam áreas com diferentes potenciais à desertificação, principalmente, as correlacionadas à caatinga esparsa e as regiões com solo exposto. Áreas que oscilaram entre queda e aumento de espaços ocupados entre os dois anos devido à sensibilidade do índice aos eventos pluviométricos que modificaram a estrutura da cobertura vegetal. Neste contexto, o SAVI mostrou-se eficiente na identificação das áreas com diferentes potencias a desertificação na área de estudo, porém, deve ser empregado com auxílio de outro método de mapeamento, visto que, os reflexos das chuvas na vegetação podem comprometer o processo de identificação das áreas de risco

Prospecção tecnológica em sistemas de dessalinização da água salobra e salgada

Desalination consists of removing salts from brackish water or seawater. Among the various known water desalination methods, the main ones are thermal and membrane, where reverse osmosis is the most common, and by electrodialysis. Water desalination is an alternative to the water supply that intends to meet the demands for drinking water. The aim of this study was to carry out a technological prospecting for patents related to water desalination. The following online patent databases were consulted: National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and European Patent Office (EPO) using various descriptor terms. With the results obtained, surveys were made chronological period of filing, distribution of patents by countries and classification of patents according to the International Patent Classification (IPC). It was found that the WIPO database had the largest number of filed patents (208,425), followed by EPO (190,906) and INPI (118). According to IPC, most patents had these classifications: 52.91% include section C (Chemistry; Metallurgy), followed by section B (Performing operations; Transporting) with 39.84%. The largest number of patents occurred in 2019, with 3,026 filings, with the United States of America and China holding the largest number of registered patents. Faced with the scenario of world population growth and climate change, the promotion of new technologies that recycle water presents a promising alternative.A dessalinização consiste na remoção de sais da água salobra ou da água do mar. Dentre os vários métodos de dessalinização de água conhecidos, os principais são o térmico e de membranas, onde a osmose reversa é a mais comum, e por eletrodiálise. A dessalinização da água é uma alternativa de aporte hídrico que visa atender as demandas por água potável. O objetivo desse estudo foi realizar uma prospecção tecnológica de patentes relacionadas à dessalinização de água. Foram consultados os seguintes bancos de dados on-line de patentes: Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial (INPI), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) e European Patent Office (EPO) usando diversos termos descritores. Com os resultados obtidos foram feitos levantamentos cronológicos de depósito, distribuição das patentes por países e classificação das patentes de acordo com a Classificação Internacional de Patente (CIP). Verificou-se que o banco de dados da WIPO apresentou o maior número de depósitos (208.425), seguido pelo EPO (190.906) e INPI (118). De acordo com a CIP, a maioria das patentes apresentaram estas classificações: 52,91% contemplam a seção C (Química; Metalúrgica), seguida pela seção B (Operações de procedimentos; Transporte) com 39,84%. O maior número de patentes ocorreu em 2019, com 3.026 depósitos, sendo que os Estados Unidos da América e a China detêm o maior número de patentes registradas. Frente ao cenário de crescimento populacional mundial e às mudanças climáticas, a promoção de novas tecnologias que reciclem a água apresenta uma alternativa promissora

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

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 understanding 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,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 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 underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 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,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 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

NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES: a data set on carnivore distribution in the Neotropics

Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae. Herein, we include published and unpublished data on native terrestrial Neotropical carnivores (Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae). NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES is a publicly available data set that includes 99,605 data entries from 35,511 unique georeferenced coordinates. Detection/non-detection and quantitative data were obtained from 1818 to 2018 by researchers, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private consultants. Data were collected using several methods including camera trapping, museum collections, roadkill, line transect, and opportunistic records. Literature (peer-reviewed and grey literature) from Portuguese, Spanish and English were incorporated in this compilation. Most of the data set consists of detection data entries (n = 79,343; 79.7%) but also includes non-detection data (n = 20,262; 20.3%). Of those, 43.3% also include count data (n = 43,151). The information available in NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES will contribute to macroecological, ecological, and conservation questions in multiple spatio-temporal perspectives. As carnivores play key roles in trophic interactions, a better understanding of their distribution and habitat requirements are essential to establish conservation management plans and safeguard the future ecological health of Neotropical ecosystems. Our data paper, combined with other large-scale data sets, has great potential to clarify species distribution and related ecological processes within the Neotropics. There are no copyright restrictions and no restriction for using data from this data paper, as long as the data paper is cited as the source of the information used. We also request that users inform us of how they intend to use the data

Brazilian Flora 2020: Leveraging the power of a collaborative scientific network

International audienceThe shortage of reliable primary taxonomic data limits the description of biological taxa and the understanding of biodiversity patterns and processes, complicating biogeographical, ecological, and evolutionary studies. This deficit creates a significant taxonomic impediment to biodiversity research and conservation planning. The taxonomic impediment and the biodiversity crisis are widely recognized, highlighting the urgent need for reliable taxonomic data. Over the past decade, numerous countries worldwide have devoted considerable effort to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which called for the preparation of a working list of all known plant species by 2010 and an online world Flora by 2020. Brazil is a megadiverse country, home to more of the world's known plant species than any other country. Despite that, Flora Brasiliensis, concluded in 1906, was the last comprehensive treatment of the Brazilian flora. The lack of accurate estimates of the number of species of algae, fungi, and plants occurring in Brazil contributes to the prevailing taxonomic impediment and delays progress towards the GSPC targets. Over the past 12 years, a legion of taxonomists motivated to meet Target 1 of the GSPC, worked together to gather and integrate knowledge on the algal, plant, and fungal diversity of Brazil. Overall, a team of about 980 taxonomists joined efforts in a highly collaborative project that used cybertaxonomy to prepare an updated Flora of Brazil, showing the power of scientific collaboration to reach ambitious goals. This paper presents an overview of the Brazilian Flora 2020 and provides taxonomic and spatial updates on the algae, fungi, and plants found in one of the world's most biodiverse countries. We further identify collection gaps and summarize future goals that extend beyond 2020. Our results show that Brazil is home to 46,975 native species of algae, fungi, and plants, of which 19,669 are endemic to the country. The data compiled to date suggests that the Atlantic Rainforest might be the most diverse Brazilian domain for all plant groups except gymnosperms, which are most diverse in the Amazon. However, scientific knowledge of Brazilian diversity is still unequally distributed, with the Atlantic Rainforest and the Cerrado being the most intensively sampled and studied biomes in the country. In times of “scientific reductionism”, with botanical and mycological sciences suffering pervasive depreciation in recent decades, the first online Flora of Brazil 2020 significantly enhanced the quality and quantity of taxonomic data available for algae, fungi, and plants from Brazil. This project also made all the information freely available online, providing a firm foundation for future research and for the management, conservation, and sustainable use of the Brazilian funga and flora