Natural forest regeneration on anthropized landscapes could overcome climate change effects on the endangered maned sloth (Bradypus torquatus, Illiger 1811)

Climate change and habitat loss have been identified as the main causes of species extinction. Forest regeneration and protected areas are essential to buffer climate change impacts and to ensure quality habitats for threatened species. We assessed the current and future environmental suitability for the maned sloth, Bradypus torquatus, under both future climate and forest restoration scenarios, using ecological niche modeling. We compared environmental suitability for two Evolutionarily Significant Units (ESUnorth and ESUsouth) using two climate change scenarios for 2070, and three potential forest regeneration scenarios. Likewise, we evaluated the protection degree of the suitable areas resulting from the models, according to Brazilian law: PA—Protected Areas; PPA—Permanent Protection Areas (environmentally sensitive areas in private properties); and LR—Legal Reserves (natural vegetation areas in private properties). Finally, we calculated the deficit of PPA and LR in each ESU, considering the current forest cover. Forest regeneration might mitigate the deleterious effects of climate change by maintaining and increasing environmental suitability in future scenarios. The ESUnorth contains more suitable areas (21,570 km²) than the ESUsouth (12,386 km²), with an increase in all future scenarios (up to 45,648 km² of new suitable areas), while ESUsouth might have a significant decrease (up to 7,546 km² less). Suitable areas are mostly unprotected (ESUnorth—65.5% and ESUsouth—58.3%). Therefore, PPA and PA can maintain only a small portion of current and future suitable areas. Both ESUs present a high deficit of PPA and LR, highlighting the necessity to act in the recovery of these areas to accomplish a large-scale restoration, mitigate climate change effects, and achieve, at least, a minimum forested area to safeguard the species. Notwithstanding, a long-term conservation of B. torquatus will benefit from forest regeneration besides those minimum requirements, allied to the protection of forest areas. Atlantic Forest, climate change, conservation, forest regeneration, landscape ecology, Pilosa, XenarthraNatural forest regeneration on anthropogenic landscapes could overcome climate change effects on the endangered maned sloth (Bradypus torquatus, Illiger 1811)acceptedVersio

Setting priority conservation management regions to reverse rapid range decline of a key neotropical forest ungulate

Mammals are important components of biodiversity that have been drastically and rapidly impacted by climate change, habitat loss, and anthropogenic pressure. Understanding key species distribution to optimize conservation targets is both urgent and necessary to reverse the current biodiversity crisis. Herein, we applied habitat suitability models for a key Neotropical forest ungulate, the white-lipped peccary (WLP Tayassu pecari), to investigate the effects of climate and landscape modifications on its distribution, which has been drastically reduced in Brazil. We used 318 primary records of WLP to derive habitat suitability maps across Brazil. Our models included bioclimatic, topographic, landscape, and human influence predictors in two modelling approaches. Models including all categories of predictors obtained the highest predictive ability and showed prevalence of suitable areas in forested regions of the country, covering 49% of the Brazilian territory. Filtering out small forest fragments (<2050 ha) reduced the suitable area by 5%, with a further reduction of 4% that was caused by deforestation until 2020, therefore until 2020, the species has suffered a reduction of ~60% from its historical range in Brazil. Of the 40% of the Brazilian territory suitable to WLP, only 12% are protected. In the Atlantic Forest, only half of all protected areas have suitable habitat for WLP and even less in Pantanal (44%), Cerrado (14%) and Caatinga (7%). In a second modelling approach, mapping the areas with suitable climate and those with suitable landscapes separately, allowed us to identify four categories of conservation values, and showed that only 17% of the Brazilian territory has both high landscape and climatic suitability for WLP. Our models can help with complementary conservation management strategies and actions that could be essential in slowing down and possibly reversing current trends of population and geographic range reductions for te species, thereby averting a possible future collapse of forest ecosystem functioning in the Neotropical region

The Atlantic Forest of South America: Spatiotemporal dynamics of the vegetation and implications for conservation

The Atlantic Forest in South America (AF) is one of the world's most diverse and threatened biodiversity hotspots. We present a comprehensive spatiotemporal analysis of 34 years of AF landscape change between 1986 and 2020. We analyzed landscape metrics of forest vegetation only (FV), forest plus other natural vegetation (NV), and the sensitivity of metrics to linear infrastructure. Currently, the AF remnants comprise 22.9% of FV and 36.3% of NV, an extent that has decreased by 2.4% and 3.6% since 1986, respectively. Linear infrastructure affected mainly the largest fragments (>500,000 ha), reducing their size by 56%–94%. The period before 2005 was characterized by loss of FV and NV (3% and 3.43%) and decrease in the number of FV and NV fragments (8.6% and 8.1%). In contrast, after 2005 the vegetation stabilized, with a recovery of 1 Mha of FV (0.6%) and an increase in the number of fragments, due in part to environmental policies. However, the AF is still a highly fragmented domain: 97% of the vegetation fragments are small (10 km in these areas. Our work highlights the importance of legislation and analysis of landscape dynamics to help future conservation and restoration programs for biodiversity in the Atlantic Forest. Landscape structure Habitat loss Habitat fragmentation Edge effect Isolation ConnectivityThe Atlantic Forest of South America: Spatiotemporal dynamics of the vegetation and implications for conservationacceptedVersio

Where do they live? Predictive geographic distribution of Tadarida brasiliensis brasiliensis (Chiroptera, Molossidae) in South America

Tadarida brasiliensis, the Brazilian free-tailed bat, is an insectivorous molossid with a wide distribution in the Americas. It occurs in different ecosystems and uses varied shelters, from caves and crevices to human constructions, such as roofs and ceilings. Despite its wide distribution, there are several sampling gaps that make it difficult to identify the regions where the species occurs. This is a particular problem for the subspecies T. brasiliensis brasiliensis in South America, a region with few studies in comparison to North America. Considering these problems involved with identifying the distribution of T. b. brasiliensis in South America, we inferred its distribution based on 121 confirmed occurrences for the subspecies. We created a species distribution model (SDM) using the ensemble approach from the combination of BIOCLIM, SVM, GLM and MaxEnt algorithms. The resulting model suggested that the subspecies is unlikely to occur in the Amazon region and has a positive affinity with human population density, topography, a lower vegetation index, and the precipitation in the driest month. Our results show there is a large continuous area suitable for T. b. brasiliensis in central and eastern South America, with interruptions and narrow areas toward Central America. The population in this last area is separated from a smaller site in Chile by Andean deserts, snowy peaks, and high-altitude points. Our results demonstrated that along its distribution suitable habitat for T. b. brasiliensis is not continuous. The discontinuities in populations require further investigation to determine if there are phylogeographic consequences for the species

Vancine Young

Vancine Young discusses being a member of the Charter Class of USF. She returned to school to get her Bachelor\u27s Degree in Education at USF after marrying and having children. This was typical among many of the University\u27s first students

Vancine Young

Vancine Young discusses being a member of the Charter Class of USF. She returned to school to get her Bachelor\u27s Degree in Education at USF after marrying and having children. This was typical among many of the University\u27s first students

Deficiencis of factor VIII and IX docs not protect the host in experimental murine sepsis

Orientador: Erich Vinicius de PaulaTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Ciências MédicasResumo: Durante muitos anos, a coagulação tem sido implicada na patogênese da sepse. Entretanto, os resultados dos ensaios clínicos com anticoagulantes naturais, bem como estudos com camundongos knockout para os fatores de coagulação específicos produziram resultados conflitantes sobre o papel da coagulação na patogênese da sepse. Dessa forma, este trabalho tem como objetivo avaliar o impacto da deficiência grave de FVIII: C e FIX: C em um modelo de sepse experimental murino induzida por LPS. Camundongos knockout com deficiência grave de FVIII: C e FIX: C e seus controles relacionados com hemostasia normal foram tratados com LPS, e vários parâmetros do resposta inflamatória foram avaliados: as curvas de sobrevida de sete dias foram realizadas utilizando duas doses de LPS; marcadores bioquímicos e marcadores histológicos de lesão tecidual foram avaliados após 3 e 6 horas da infusão de LPS; parâmetros de coagulação e níveis séricos de citocinas pró-inflamatórias foram avaliados no início e após 3 e 6 horas da injeção de LPS. A deficiência grave de FVIII e FIX foram compatíveis com sobrevida normal na sepse experimental murina. Além disso, o dano tecidual induzido por LPS e a ativação da coagulação foram semelhantes em camundongos com deficiência de FVIII ou FIX em relação aos respectivos controles. Uma menor liberação de citocinas pró-inflamatórias foi observada em camundongos com deficiência grave de FIX, mas não em camundongos com deficiência de FVIII. Portanto, concluímos que a deficiência grave de FVIII ou FIX não protege camundongos da mortalidade ou de dano de tecido no modelo de endotoxemia, reforçando a hipótese de FVIII e FIX não são críticas para a patogênese da sepse experimentalAbstract: For many years, coagulation has been implicated in the pathogenesis of sepsis. However, the results of clinical studies with natural anticoagulant, as well as studies with knockout mice for specific coagulation factors produced conflicting results about the role of coagulation in the pathogenesis of sepsis. Our objective are evaluate the impact of severe deficiency of FVIII: C and FIX: C in an experimental murine model of sepsis induced by LPS. Knockout mice with severe deficiency of FVIII: C and FIX: C and its littermate hemostatic normal control mice were treated with LPS, and several inflammatory parameters were evaluated: survival curves seven days were done using two doses of LPS ; biochemical markers and histological markers of tissue injury were assessed after 3 and 6 hours of LPS infusion, coagulation parameters and serum levels of proinflammatory cytokines were assessed at baseline and after 3 and 6 hours of LPS injection. Severe deficiencies of FVIII and FIX were compatible with normal survival in experimental murine sepsis. In addition, the LPS-induced tissue damage and coagulation activation were similar in mice deficient in FVIII or FIX with respect to their controls. A lower release of proinflammatory cytokines was observed in mice with severe deficiency of FIX, but not in mice with deficiency of FVIII. The severe deficiency of FVIII or FIX does not protect mice from mortality and tissue damage in endotoxemia model, supporting the hypothesis that FVIII and FIX are not critical to the pathogenesis of experimental sepsisDoutoradoClinica MedicaDoutor em Clínica Médic