O turismo na reserva de desenvolvimento sustentável Amanã pela perspectiva das comunidades locais

El turismo comunitario es un modelo de actividad que prioriza el encuentro y el respeto entre los anfitriones y los visitantes, al buscar el empoderamiento local para lograr la autogestión y la emancipación social. Esa forma de turismo se incrementa en zonas rurales de naturaleza preservada donde habitan poblaciones tradicionales y se perfila como tendencia en los entornos como la Amazonía. La Reserva de Desarrollo Sostenible Amanã, en el estado de Amazonas, alberga a comunidades que buscan desarrollar formas propias de turismo, asociadas a la conservación y valorización de la cultura. El objetivo de este trabajo es presentar algunas opiniones de los habitantes de la Reserva Amanã sobre el turismo, recogidas a través de entrevistas, encuentros o durante investigaciones etnográficas a lo largo de más de una década de investigación en la región. La diversidad de posiciones y expectativas revelan las diferentes perspectivas y el carácter continuo del proceso de construcción del planeamiento de actividades, que lleva la esperanza de los habitantes en lograr mejoras en sus vidas. Las deficiencias estructurales y el desamparo gubernamental aparecen como limitaciones al progreso local que pueden ser un obstáculo para el turismo o ser parcialmente suplidas por el desarrollo de la actividad.Community-based tourism presents itself as an activity that prioritizes the encounter and the respect between hosts and guests, seeking local empowerment to achieve self-management and social emancipation. This form of tourism has been growing in rural areas of preserved nature where traditional populations live, standing out as a trend in environments such as the Amazon. The Amanã Sustainable Development Reserve, in the state of Amazonas, houses communities that seek to develop their own forms of tourism, associated to the conservation and the valorization of culture. The objective of this work is to present some opinions of residents of Amanã Reserve about tourism collected with interviews in meetings or during ethnographic research over more than a decade of investigations in the region. The diversity of positions and expectations reveal the different perspectives and the continuous nature of the construction process of tourist planning, which carries with it the residents’ hope in achieving improvements in their lives. Structural deficiencies and governmental helplessness appear as limitations to local progress, which can either be an obstacle for tourism or be partially met by the development of the activity.O turismo de base comunitária se apresenta como um modelo de atividade que prioriza o encontro e o respeito entre os anfitriões e visitantes, buscando o empoderamento local para atingir a autogestão e a emancipação social. Esta forma de turismo vem crescendo em áreas rurais de natureza preservada onde habitam populações tradicionais e desponta como uma tendência para ambientes como a Amazônia. A Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Amanã, no Amazonas, abriga comunidades que procuram desenvolver suas próprias formas de turismo, associadas à conservação e à valorização da cultura. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar algumas opiniões de moradores da Reserva Amanã sobre o turismo, colhidas por meio de entrevistas, em reuniões ou durante pesquisa de caráter etnográfico, ao longo de mais de uma década de investigações na região. A diversidade de posições e expectativas revelam as diferentes perspectivas e o caráter contínuo do processo de construção do planejamento da atividade, que carrega consigo a esperança dos moradores em conquistar melhorias em suas vidas. Carências estruturais e desamparo governamental aparecem como limitações para o progresso local que podem tanto ser um empecilho para o turismo, quanto serem parcialmente atendidas pelo desenvolvimento da atividade

Large barchanoid dunes in the Amazon River and the rock record : implications for interpreting large river systems.

The interpretation of large river deposits from the rock record is hampered by the scarcity of direct observations of active large river systems. That is particularly true for deep-channel environments, where tens of meters deep flows dominate. These conditions are extremely different from what is found in smaller systems, from which current facies models were derived. MBES and shallow seismic surveys in a selected area of the Upper Amazonas River in Northern Brazil revealed the presence of large compound barchanoid dunes along the channel thalweg. The dunes are characterized by V-shaped, concave-downstream crest lines and convex-up longitudinal profiles, hundreds of meters wide, up to 300 m in wavelength and several meters high. Based on the morphology of compound dunes, expected preserved sedimentary structures are broad, large-scale, low-angle, concave up and downstream cross-strata, passing laterally and downstream to inclined cosets. Examples of such structures from large river deposits in the rock record are described in the Silurian Serra Grande Group and the Cretaceous S?o Sebasti?o and Marizal formations in Northeastern Brazil, as well as in Triassic Hawkesburry Sandstone in Southeastern Australia and the Plio?Pleistocene I?? Formation in the western Amazon. All these sedimentary structures are found near channel base surfaces and are somewhat coarser than the overlying fluvial deposits, favoring the interpretation of thalweg depositional settings. The recognition of large barchanoid dunes as bedforms restricted to river thalwegs and probably to large river systems brings the possibility of establishing new criteria for the interpretation of fluvial system scale in the rock record. Sedimentary structures compatible with the morphological characteristics of these bedforms seem to be relatively common in large river deposits, given their initial recognition in five different fluvial successions in Brazil and Australia, potentially enabling substantial improvements in facies models for large rivers

Cloudina-Corumbella-Namacalathus association from the Itapucumi Group, Paraguay: Increasing ecosystem complexity and tiering at the end of the Ediacaran

The intriguing Ediacaran fossil Namacalathus is described from limestones of the Tagatiya Guazú Formation, Itapucumi Group, Paraguay. This is the fifth occurrence of the genus in the Ediacaran geological record. The Paraguayan Namacalathus specimens are preserved as partially complete spheroidal cups with an opening at the top and thin walled stems. The remains of this soft-calcified globe-shaped organism occur as sparse disarticulated parautochthonous fragments within bioclastic deposits dominated by Cloudina shells with subordinate Corumbella fragments. The co-occurrence of these three skeletal metazoan species in the same environmental context attests that the diversity of the Paraguayan accumulations is ecologically comparable to the typical skeletal assemblage of the Nama Group. The discovery of new samples of Namacalathus in the Itapucumi Group also indicates that this genus presented a broader paleobiogeographic distribution than previously thought and, in the same way as Cloudina, it represents a low latitude, shallow water metazoan of the Ediacaran Gondwana.Centro de Investigaciones Geológica

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

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

NEOTROPICAL XENARTHRANS: a data set of occurrence of xenarthran species in the Neotropics

Xenarthrans – anteaters, sloths, and armadillos – have essential functions for ecosystem maintenance, such as insect control and nutrient cycling, playing key roles as ecosystem engineers. Because of habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting pressure, and conflicts with 24 domestic dogs, these species have been threatened locally, regionally, or even across their full distribution ranges. The Neotropics harbor 21 species of armadillos, ten anteaters, and six sloths. Our dataset includes the families Chlamyphoridae (13), Dasypodidae (7), Myrmecophagidae (3), Bradypodidae (4), and Megalonychidae (2). We have no occurrence data on Dasypus pilosus (Dasypodidae). Regarding Cyclopedidae, until recently, only one species was recognized, but new genetic studies have revealed that the group is represented by seven species. In this data-paper, we compiled a total of 42,528 records of 31 species, represented by occurrence and quantitative data, totaling 24,847 unique georeferenced records. The geographic range is from the south of the USA, Mexico, and Caribbean countries at the northern portion of the Neotropics, to its austral distribution in Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Uruguay. Regarding anteaters, Myrmecophaga tridactyla has the most records (n=5,941), and Cyclopes sp. has the fewest (n=240). The armadillo species with the most data is Dasypus novemcinctus (n=11,588), and the least recorded for Calyptophractus retusus (n=33). With regards to sloth species, Bradypus variegatus has the most records (n=962), and Bradypus pygmaeus has the fewest (n=12). Our main objective with Neotropical Xenarthrans is to make occurrence and quantitative data available to facilitate more ecological research, particularly if we integrate the xenarthran data with other datasets of Neotropical Series which will become available very soon (i.e. Neotropical Carnivores, Neotropical Invasive Mammals, and Neotropical Hunters and Dogs). Therefore, studies on trophic cascades, hunting pressure, habitat loss, fragmentation effects, species invasion, and climate change effects will be possible with the Neotropical Xenarthrans dataset