Diagnóstico de preservação da Biblioteca de obras raras da Escola de Belas Artes da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (EBAOR): um estudo baseado nos 10 agentes de deterioração da Fundação Biblioteca Nacional

A Biblioteca de Obras Raras da Escola de Belas Artes (EBAOR) da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) possui um acervo referencial no campo da raridade bibliográfica. Embora tenha sofrido com as ações do tempo e condições de guarda, tal coleção constitui um verdadeiro patrimônio documental na UFRJ. Pretende-se discutir a preservação de obras raras, tendo como base investigativa a coleção da EBAOR. Para tanto, foi realizada revisão de literatura sobre o tema e desenvolvido um diagnóstico de preservação fundamentado nos 10 agentes de deterioração, a saber: forças físicas, criminosos, fogo, água, pragas, poluentes, luz e radiação UV e IR, temperatura incorreta, umidade relativa incorreta e dissociação. Conclui-se que a EBAOR se preocupa com os procedimentos para a preservação de seu acervo, porém encontra dificuldades para implementar medidas mais completas. Tal panorama aponta para a necessidade de implementação de ações técnicas, administrativas e políticas

PROJETO DE PRESERVAÇÃO DOS LIVROS DE ATAS DO CONSUNI

A lei 12.527 de 18 de novembro de 2011, mais conhecida como Lei de Acesso à Informação assim como a lei 8.159 de 08 de janeiro de 1991, a Lei de Arquivos e, sobretudo, a constituição de 1988, visam a garantir aos cidadãos o direito à informação no âmbito do Poder Executivo Federal. Neste rol inclui-se a Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro como entidade custodiadora de documentos e informação para atender a sociedade. Criado pela portaria 2.726 de 29 de março de 2016, o Sistema de Arquivos - SIARQ foi instituído a fim de implantar diretrizes para a política arquivística, estabelecendo padrões para procedimentos afins além de disseminar o patrimônio documental da instituição. Nesta abordagem ressalta-se o papel da Seção de Arquivo Permanente, responsável pela preservação dos conjuntos documentais de guarda permanente da universidade, isto é, os arquivos históricos. Dentre esses conjuntos destacam-se os livros de atas do Conselho Universitário (CONSUNI).  Apesar de sua grande relevância, notou-se que estas informações não poderiam ser acessadas devido às condições dos documentos conforme constatado após análise técnica. Para manter a integridade física e o acesso dos mesmos, foi elaborado um projeto de preservação. Tal projeto engloba 17 livros produzidos entre 1920 e 1967, cujos documentos são de valor informativo inestimável para a história institucional. O desenvolvimento deste ratifica o trabalho do arquivo em prol da memória, sendo de suma importância não somente para o SIARQ, mas também para a UFRJ, de modo a integrar as comemorações do centenário da instituição em 2020

A simple method for simulating drought effects on plants

Drought is expected to increase in frequency and severity in many regions in the future, so it is important to improve our understanding of how drought affects plant functional traits and ecological interactions. Imposing experimental water deficits is key to gaining this understanding, but has been hindered by logistic difficulties in maintaining consistently low water availability for plants. Here, we describe a simple method for applying soil water deficits to potted plants in glasshouse experiments. We modified an existing method (the “Snow and Tingey system”) in order to apply a gradual, moderate water deficit to 50 plant species of different life forms (grasses, vines, shrubs, trees). The method requires less maintenance and manual handling compared to other water deficit methods, so it can be used for extended periods of time and is relatively inexpensive to implement. With only a few modifications, it is possible to easily establish and maintain soil water deficits of differing intensity and duration, as well as to incorporate interacting stress factors. We tested this method by measuring physiological responses to an applied water deficit in a subset of 11 tree/shrub species with a wide range of drought tolerances and water-use strategies. For this subgroup of species, stomatal conductance was 2–17 times lower in droughted plants than controls, although only half of the species (5 out of 11) experienced midday leaf water potentials that exceeded their turgor loss (i.e., wilting) point. Leaf temperatures were up to 8°C higher in droughted plants than controls, indicating that droughted plants are at greater risk of thermal damage, relative to unstressed plants. The largest leaf temperature differences (between droughted and well-watered plants) were in species with high rates of water loss. Rapid osmotic adjustment was observed in leaves of five species when drought stress was combined with an experimental heatwave. These results highlight the potential value of further ecological and physiological experiments utilizing this simple water deficit method to study plant responses to drought stress

Urban change as an untapped opportunity for climate adaptation

Urban social–ecological–technological systems (SETS) are dynamic and respond to climate pressures. Change involves alterations to land and resource management, social organization, infrastructure, and design. Research often focuses on how climate change impacts urban SETS or on the characteristics of urban SETS that promote climate resilience. Yet passive approaches to urban climate change adaptation may disregard active SETS change by urban residents, planners, and policymakers that could be opportunities for adaptation. Here, we use evidence of urban social, ecological, and technological change to address how SETS change opens windows of opportunity to improve climate change adaptation.National Science Foundation (NSF) https://doi.org/10.13039/100000001NordForsk https://doi.org/10.13039/501100004785Peer Reviewe

Urban Gardens as a Space to Engender Biophilia: Evidence and Ways Forward

Cities are losing green space driving an extinction of nature experiences for urban communities. Incremental green space loss can trigger a ratcheting-down effect where individuals' expectations of nature continually decrease through time. This loss of everyday nature experiences may produce a citizenry with reduced knowledge and appreciation of biodiversity and the environment. In this review, we examine how urban gardens, as urban spaces that bring people into close contact with nature in an otherwise built environment, can combat this ratcheting-down effect by encouraging interactions and knowledge of nature. We review three ways urban gardens may engender greater biophilia: (1) the provision of natural elements to expose urban dwellers to the diversity of plants, animals, and soils that they would otherwise not encounter in their daily life; (2) fostering a greater understanding of natural processes that affect food production (e.g., climate processes, pest control, pollination) and thus the natural world; and (3) the provision of a safe space in which humans can corporeally interact with nature elements to develop greater fascination with nature. Thus, urban gardens can engender biophilia for their participants by increasing exposure, positive interactions, and knowledge of nature, potentially changing people's attitudes to nature. We present examples from a variety of urban gardens to show how these spaces can be designed using biophilic thinking to enhance people's everyday nature experiences and their drive to interact with the natural world

The Provision of Urban Ecosystem Services Throughout the Private-Social-Public Domain: A Conceptual Framework

As cities are largely private systems, recent investigations have assessed the provision of ecosystem services from the private realm. However, these assessments are largely based on the concept of ownership and fail to capture the complexity of service provision mediated by interactions between people and ecological structures. In fact, people interact with ecological structures in their role of land tenants and stewards, further modulating the provision of ecosystem services. We devise a theoretical framework based on the concepts of ownership, tenancy, and stewardship, in which people, as mediators of ecosystem services, regulate the provision of services throughout the private-social-public domain. We survey relevant literature describing these dimensions and propose a comprehensive framework focused on the private-social-public domain. Our framework can advance ecosystem service research and enhance the provision of ecosystems services. The inclusion of people’s individual, social and public roles in the mediation of ecosystem services could improve how benefits are planned for, prioritized, and optimized across cities

Extreme heat increases stomatal conductance and drought-induced mortality risk in vulnerable plant species

Tree mortality during global-change-type drought is usually attributed to xylem dysfunction, but as climate change increases the frequency of extreme heat events, it is necessary to better understand the interactive role of heat stress. We hypothesized that some drought-stressed plants paradoxically open stomata in heatwaves to prevent leaves from critically overheating. We experimentally imposed heat (>40°C) and drought stress onto 20 broadleaf evergreen tree/shrub species in a glasshouse study. Most well-watered plants avoided lethal overheating, but drought exacerbated thermal damage during heatwaves. Thermal safety margins (TSM) quantifying the difference between leaf surface temperature and leaf critical temperature, where photosynthesis is disrupted, identified species vulnerability to heatwaves. Several mechanisms contributed to high heat tolerance and avoidance of damaging leaf temperatures—small leaf size, low leaf osmotic potential, high leaf mass per area (i.e., thick, dense leaves), high transpirational capacity, and access to water. Water-stressed plants had smaller TSM, greater crown dieback, and a fundamentally different stomatal heatwave response relative to well-watered plants. On average, well-watered plants closed stomata and decreased stomatal conductance (gs) during the heatwave, but droughted plants did not. Plant species with low gs, either due to isohydric stomatal behavior under water deficit or inherently low transpirational capacity, opened stomata and increased gs under high temperatures. The current paradigm maintains that stomata close before hydraulic thresholds are surpassed, but our results suggest that isohydric species may dramatically increase gs (over sixfold increases) even past their leaf turgor loss point. By actively increasing water loss at high temperatures, plants can be driven toward mortality thresholds more rapidly than has been previously recognized. The inclusion of TSM and responses to heat stress could improve our ability to predict the vulnerability of different tree species to future droughts

School Microclimates

Outdoor school environments need to be safe, stimulate physical and cognitive development of children and encourage learning. These key requirements are jeopardised by increasing summer heat. Summer heat limits outdoor activities and has adverse effects on physical wellbeing of school children and teachers. Children are particularly vulnerable to heat as they regulate their core temperature through convection, which becomes less effective when it is hot. Based on empirical data collections, this report provides more than 20 practical recommendations on how to reduce the impacts of outdoor heat. Although these recommendations were devised based on work around a public school in Western Sydney, their universal character allows applying them to any school or other urban build infrastructure. Avoiding the use of artificial grass in unshaded spaces, shading black asphalt, allowing natural air flows and using shade materials with highly reflective upper surfaces should be fundamental principles in design and building guidelines for heat-smart schools

Urban forest invertebrates : how they shape and respond to the urban environment

Invertebrates comprise the most diversified animal group on Earth. Due to their long evolutionary history and small size, invertebrates occupy a remarkable range of ecological niches, and play an important role as "ecosystem engineers" by structuring networks of mutualistic and antagonistic ecological interactions in almost all terrestrial ecosystems. Urban forests provide critical ecosystem services to humans, and, as in other systems, invertebrates are central to structuring and maintaining the functioning of urban forests. Identifying the role of invertebrates in urban forests can help elucidate their importance to practitioners and the public, not only to preserve biodiversity in urban environments, but also to make the public aware of their functional importance in maintaining healthy greenspaces. In this review, we examine the multiple functional roles that invertebrates play in urban forests that contribute to ecosystem service provisioning, including pollination, predation, herbivory, seed and microorganism dispersal and organic matter decomposition, but also those that lead to disservices, primarily from a public health perspective, e.g., transmission of invertebrate-borne diseases. We then identify a number of ecological filters that structure urban forest invertebrate communities, such as changes in habitat structure, increased landscape imperviousness, microclimatic changes and pollution. We also discuss the complexity of ways that forest invertebrates respond to urbanisation, including acclimation, local extinction and evolution. Finally, we present management recommendations to support and conserve viable and diverse urban forest invertebrate populations into the future.Peer reviewe