Mental health, quality of life and optimism during the covid-19 pandemic: a comparison between Brazil and Portugal

Purpose Although there have been numerous studies investigating the mental health of individuals during the pandemic, a comparison between countries is still scarce in the literature. To explore this gap, the present study aimed to compare the mental health (i.e., anxiety and depression), quality of life (QoL), and optimism/pessimism among individuals from Brazil and Portugal during the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated factors. Method A cross-sectional population-based study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and Portugal. Data collection was carried out between May and June 2020, using an online form which was sent through social networks. A total of 2069 participants (1156 from Brazil and 913 from Portugal) were included. Depressive symptoms (PHQ-9), Anxiety (GAD-7), optimism/pessimism (Revised Life Orientation Test – LOT), QoL (WHOQOL-Bref), and sociodemographic, health, and social distancing variables were assessed. Data was analyzed using univariate and multivariate models. Results There were remarkable diferences between Brazil and Portugal in all outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic, including higher levels of depressive symptoms, anxiety, and optimism for the Brazilian individuals and higher levels of QoL and pessimism for the Portuguese individuals. The following factors were associated with the mental health and QoL in both Brazilian and Portuguese populations: gender, age, being a healthcare professional, and days in social distancing. Conclusion Despite the fact that Brazilians were more optimistic during the COVID-19 pandemic, they had lower levels of mental health and QoL as compared to the Portuguese individuals.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Vestígios indígenas na cartografia do sertão da América portuguesa

During the first three centuries of colonization of Portuguese America, indigenous cartography helped the outlanders to decipher the space that they conventionally named sertão (backcountry). The colonizers in the Captaincy of São Paulo (expeditions, soldiers, settlers, bureaucrats, merchants, and adventurers) mapped out the hinterland with utmost care. However, because the territory was a colony, such agents reorganized that space and classified the ethnic groups into distinct, fixed and homogenous categories. As the Portuguese Crown moved ahead with its conquest, the indigenous groups were gradually wiped out from the maps and their territories expropriated.Nos três primeiros séculos da colonização da América portuguesa, a cartografia indígena auxiliou no processo de decodificação do espaço convencionalmente chamado "sertão" pelos adventícios. Agentes de colonização da capitania de São Paulo (bandeirantes, soldados, povoadores, burocratas, comerciantes e aventureiros) mapearam cuidadosamente os territórios interiores. A situação colonial, entretanto, impôs uma nova orientação do espaço, bem como classificou os grupos étnicos em categorias distintas, fixas e homogêneas. Nesse processo de conquista da Coroa portuguesa, os grupos indígenas foram gradativamente eclipsados dos mapas, e seus territórios, expropriados

Iconografia tropical: motivos locais na arte colonial brasileira

Este artigo estuda a representação visual da natureza tropical na arte sacra do período colonial brasileiro, entre os séculos XVI e XVIII, época em que as artes visuais do país se desenvolveram no contexto do barroco introduzido pelos missionários católicos. Foi na decoração das igrejas que apareceram algumas das primeiras representações artísticas de elementos da natureza local, notadamente as frutas tropicais, produzindo novas combinações junto à tradicional ornamentação fitomórfica europeia, constituída de folhas de acantos e vinhas. Após um levantamento das ocorrências dessas manifestações da temática local na decoração dos templos presentes nas regiões nordeste e sudeste do país, este trabalho aborda, nos textos dos viajantes e missionários produzidos no período, as interpretações cristãs da natureza tropical que permitiram o aproveitamento desses motivos como parte da estratégia de pregação e conversão católica por meio da alegorização moral e religiosa da natureza do Novo Mundo.This paper studies the visual representation of local nature in the sacred art developed during the colonial period of Brazilian history. In this period, between the XVIth and the XVIIIth centuries, the visual arts in the country evolved in the context of the Baroque introduced by Catholic missionaries. It was in the decoration of the churches in which the first representations of aspects of local nature, mostly the tropical fruits, appeared in Brazilian visual arts, producing new combinations together with the traditional European phytomorphic ornamentation of acanthus leaves and grapes. This research draws upon texts written by travellers and missionaries during the period to demonstrate how the Europeans interpreted and represented tropical nature and used these representations as part of the Catholic preaching strategy by means of moral and religious allegorization of the New World nature

Geographic patterns of tree dispersal modes in Amazonia and their ecological correlates

Aim: To investigate the geographic patterns and ecological correlates in the geographic distribution of the most common tree dispersal modes in Amazonia (endozoochory, synzoochory, anemochory and hydrochory). We examined if the proportional abundance of these dispersal modes could be explained by the availability of dispersal agents (disperser-availability hypothesis) and/or the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits (resource-availability hypothesis). Time period: Tree-inventory plots established between 1934 and 2019. Major taxa studied: Trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 9.55 cm. Location: Amazonia, here defined as the lowland rain forests of the Amazon River basin and the Guiana Shield. Methods: We assigned dispersal modes to a total of 5433 species and morphospecies within 1877 tree-inventory plots across terra-firme, seasonally flooded, and permanently flooded forests. We investigated geographic patterns in the proportional abundance of dispersal modes. We performed an abundance-weighted mean pairwise distance (MPD) test and fit generalized linear models (GLMs) to explain the geographic distribution of dispersal modes. Results: Anemochory was significantly, positively associated with mean annual wind speed, and hydrochory was significantly higher in flooded forests. Dispersal modes did not consistently show significant associations with the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits. A lower dissimilarity in dispersal modes, resulting from a higher dominance of endozoochory, occurred in terra-firme forests (excluding podzols) compared to flooded forests. Main conclusions: The disperser-availability hypothesis was well supported for abiotic dispersal modes (anemochory and hydrochory). The availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits seems an unlikely explanation for the distribution of dispersal modes in Amazonia. The association between frugivores and the proportional abundance of zoochory requires further research, as tree recruitment not only depends on dispersal vectors but also on conditions that favour or limit seedling recruitment across forest types

Mapping density, diversity and species-richness of the Amazon tree flora

Using 2.046 botanically-inventoried tree plots across the largest tropical forest on Earth, we mapped tree species-diversity and tree species-richness at 0.1-degree resolution, and investigated drivers for diversity and richness. Using only location, stratified by forest type, as predictor, our spatial model, to the best of our knowledge, provides the most accurate map of tree diversity in Amazonia to date, explaining approximately 70% of the tree diversity and species-richness. Large soil-forest combinations determine a significant percentage of the variation in tree species-richness and tree alpha-diversity in Amazonian forest-plots. We suggest that the size and fragmentation of these systems drive their large-scale diversity patterns and hence local diversity. A model not using location but cumulative water deficit, tree density, and temperature seasonality explains 47% of the tree species-richness in the terra-firme forest in Amazonia. Over large areas across Amazonia, residuals of this relationship are small and poorly spatially structured, suggesting that much of the residual variation may be local. The Guyana Shield area has consistently negative residuals, showing that this area has lower tree species-richness than expected by our models. We provide extensive plot meta-data, including tree density, tree alpha-diversity and tree species-richness results and gridded maps at 0.1-degree resolution

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Rarity of monodominance in hyperdiverse Amazonian forests.

Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such "monodominant" forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (ATDN). Utilizing a simple defining metric of at least half of the trees ≥ 10 cm diameter belonging to one species, we found only a few occurrences of monodominance in Amazonia, and the phenomenon was not significantly linked to previously hypothesized life history traits such wood density, seed mass, ectomycorrhizal associations, or Rhizobium nodulation. In our analysis, coppicing (the formation of sprouts at the base of the tree or on roots) was the only trait significantly linked to monodominance. While at specific locales coppicing or ectomycorrhizal associations may confer a considerable advantage to a tree species and lead to its monodominance, very few species have these traits. Mining of the ATDN dataset suggests that monodominance is quite rare in Amazonia, and may be linked primarily to edaphic factors

Mapping density, diversity and species-richness of the Amazon tree flora

Using 2.046 botanically-inventoried tree plots across the largest tropical forest on Earth, we mapped tree species-diversity and tree species-richness at 0.1-degree resolution, and investigated drivers for diversity and richness. Using only location, stratified by forest type, as predictor, our spatial model, to the best of our knowledge, provides the most accurate map of tree diversity in Amazonia to date, explaining approximately 70% of the tree diversity and species-richness. Large soil-forest combinations determine a significant percentage of the variation in tree species-richness and tree alpha-diversity in Amazonian forest-plots. We suggest that the size and fragmentation of these systems drive their large-scale diversity patterns and hence local diversity. A model not using location but cumulative water deficit, tree density, and temperature seasonality explains 47% of the tree species-richness in the terra-firme forest in Amazonia. Over large areas across Amazonia, residuals of this relationship are small and poorly spatially structured, suggesting that much of the residual variation may be local. The Guyana Shield area has consistently negative residuals, showing that this area has lower tree species-richness than expected by our models. We provide extensive plot meta-data, including tree density, tree alpha-diversity and tree species-richness results and gridded maps at 0.1-degree resolution