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

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

Plant ecological strategies in seasonal forests and savannas of the cerrado

Submitted by Luciana Ferreira ([email protected]) on 2017-05-22T15:55:42Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Leandro Maracahipes dos Santos - 2017.pdf: 3094765 bytes, checksum: a7fa8f585e1539956b511e26bdb50212 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5)Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira ([email protected]) on 2017-05-22T15:56:58Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Leandro Maracahipes dos Santos - 2017.pdf: 3094765 bytes, checksum: a7fa8f585e1539956b511e26bdb50212 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5)Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-22T15:56:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Leandro Maracahipes dos Santos - 2017.pdf: 3094765 bytes, checksum: a7fa8f585e1539956b511e26bdb50212 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-04-13Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPESThe adoption of different ecological strategies is an important factor to determine the establishment and persistence of species in local communities. In general, the Cerrado is characterized by high fire frequency and poor soils. Generally under conditions of low fertility and high fire frequency the filtered species tend to have characteristics that represent adaptations to these environmental stresses. Considering that savanna species evolved under severe environmental filters, our aim was to evaluate how the adoption of different ecological strategies can determine the performance of the functional traits, the structure of the communities, and the relationship between a focal plant and its neighborhood. In this thesis work, which is divided into three chapters, we use three different scales to evaluate how species ecological strategies can determine the performance and establishment in local communities. In the first chapter, which is based on habitat scale, we evaluated how ecological strategies of generalist and specialist species of seasonal forest and savannas are fundamental for the establishment and persistence of the species in these habitats with marked differences in frequency in fire frequency and nutrient availability. In this chapter, we discuss that the different strategies adopted by species are in accordance to the limiting factors of the species occurrence in each of these environments. In the second chapter, which is based on community scale, we seek to understand how environmental gradients can determine different ecological strategies related to functional traits and density of individuals. We showed that the changes in trait values and density of individuals were more evident in the fertility gradient than toxicity, and that seasonal forest communities were more sensitive to changes savanna communities in both gradients. We also observed that species with conservative traits were associated with poor soils and species with acquisitive traits with more fertile soils. In the third chapter, which was developed at the individual scale, we discussed whether the characteristics and phylogenetic relationship of the neighboring plants influence leaf damage in trees and shrubs of savannas. In this chapter, we showed that the ecological and evolutionary distance between individual plants and neighboring plants does not determine the level of leaf damage by herbivores. We discussed that the dominance of generalist herbivores, co-evolution between plants and specialist herbivores, and preferential consumption of young leaves may be more important to determine the level of leaf damage than the neighboring context in which a given plant is inserted.A adoção de diferentes estratégias ecológicas é um fator importante para determinar o estabelecimento e a persistência de espécies em comunidades locais. De maneira geral, o cerrado é caracterizado por uma alta frequência de fogo e solos pobres em nutrientes. Geralmente em condições de baixa fertilidade e alta frequência de fogo as espécies filtradas tendem a possuir características que representam adaptações a estes estresses ambientais. Considerando que as espécies de Cerrado se desenvolvem sob a atuação destes filtros ambientais, nosso objetivo foi avaliar como a adoção de diferentes estratégias ecológicas podem determinar a performance dos atributos funcionais, a estrutura das comunidades e a relação entre uma planta focal e sua vizinhança. Neste trabalho de tese, que está dividido em três capítulos, nós utilizamos três diferentes escalas para avaliar como estratégias ecológicas das espécies podem determinar seu desempenho e estabelecimento em comunidades locais. No primeiro capítulo que está baseado em uma escala de habitat, nós avaliamos como as estratégias ecológicas de espécies generalistas e especialistas de floresta estacional e cerrado sentido restrito são fundamentais para o estabelecimento e a persistência das espécies nestes habitats com diferenças marcantes em relação à frequência de fogo e disponibilidade de nutrientes. Neste capítulo, nós discutimos que as diferentes estratégias adotadas pelas espécies estão de acordo com os fatores limitantes da ocorrência de espécies em cada um destes ambientes. No segundo capítulo, que está baseado em escala de comunidades, nós buscamos compreender como os gradientes ambientais podem determinar diferentes estratégias ecológicas relacionadas aos atributos funcionais e a densidade de espécies. Nós demonstramos que as mudanças nos valores de atributos e densidade de espécies foram mais claras no gradiente de fertilidade do que toxicidade, e que comunidades de floresta estacional foram mais sensíveis a mudanças do que comunidades de cerrado sentido restrito em ambos os gradientes. Nós observamos também que espécies com atributos conservativos foram associados à solos pobres e espécies com atributos aquisitivos associado à solos mais férteis. Já no terceiro capítulo, que foi desenvolvido na escala de indivíduo, nós discutimos se as características e relação filogenética das plantas vizinhas influenciam o dano foliar em árvores e arbustos do cerrado. Neste capítulo, demonstramos que a distância ecológica e evolutiva entre plantas individuais e as plantas vizinhas não determina o nível de consumo foliar por herbívoros. Nós discutimos que a dominância de herbívoros generalistas, a co-evolução entre plantas e herbívoros especialistas, e o consumo preferencial de folhas jovens podem ser mais importante para determinar o nível de dano foliar do que o contexto de vizinhança em que uma dada planta está inserida

Tibouchina papyrus (Pohl) Toledo, 1952 (Melastomataceae): distribution extension to the northern part of Brazilian Cerrado

New records of Tibouchina papyrus for Mato Grosso State extend its distribution in the northern part of the Brazilian Savanna, contributing to the conservation of this species and the areas in which it occur

AMAZONIA CAMTRAP: A data set of mammal, bird, and reptile species recorded with camera traps in the Amazon forest

The Amazon forest has the highest biodiversity on Earth. However, information on Amazonian vertebrate diversity is still deficient and scattered across the published, peer-reviewed, and gray literature and in unpublished raw data. Camera traps are an effective non-invasive method of surveying vertebrates, applicable to different scales of time and space. In this study, we organized and standardized camera trap records from different Amazon regions to compile the most extensive data set of inventories of mammal, bird, and reptile species ever assembled for the area. The complete data set comprises 154,123 records of 317 species (185 birds, 119 mammals, and 13 reptiles) gathered from surveys from the Amazonian portion of eight countries (Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela). The most frequently recorded species per taxa were: mammals: Cuniculus paca (11,907 records); birds: Pauxi tuberosa (3713 records); and reptiles: Tupinambis teguixin (716 records). The information detailed in this data paper opens up opportunities for new ecological studies at different spatial and temporal scales, allowing for a more accurate evaluation of the effects of habitat loss, fragmentation, climate change, and other human-mediated defaunation processes in one of the most important and threatened tropical environments in the world. The data set is not copyright restricted; please cite this data paper when using its data in publications and we also request that researchers and educators inform us of how they are using these data