Population recovery, seasonal site fidelity and daily activity of pirarucu (Arapaima spp.) in an Amazonian floodplain mosaic

1. Pirarucu (Arapaima spp.) are the world's largest scaled freshwater fish, reaching 3 m in length and >200 kg in weight. Historical overfishing has devastated populations of this remarkable fish across Amazonian floodplains, but community‐based management programmes are now stimulating the recovery of wild populations. 2. Pirarucu have evolved a unique set of life history traits, some of which have important implications for population management. Individuals exhibit lateral annual migration patterns during the prolonged annual flood pulse, entering flooded forests to reproduce and forage. During this period, although managed fish stocks become less monopolisable by local communities responsible for managing protected lakes, pirarucu can occupy and reproduce in new environments and thus potentially contribute to population recovery. 3. Here, we show a strong pattern of pirarucu (Arapaima cf. gigas) population recovery under community‐based management in an area along the Juruá River, in western Brazilian Amazonia. We show evidence of population recovery even outside formal protected areas, reinforcing the suitability of pirarucu community‐based management as a powerful tool for both biodiversity conservation and the improvement of local livelihoods. We also show pirarucu movements across a floodplain mosaic—including lakes, the main river channel, tributary streams, and flooded forests—during the wet season. 4. Our results support evidence of site fidelity among migrating pirarucu, justifying the high effort invested by local communities in seasonally protecting lakes from poachers and illegal fishers. Finally, restricted daily movement patterns by pirarucu support the suitability of population estimates based on day‐time counts because the chance of double counting is substantially reduced during the day when these counts are conducted. We highlight the strong suitability of this species for community‐based management, since they can: (1) replenish new environments during the wet season through migration and possibly also reproduction; and (2) be efficiently harvested during the dry season, delivering social and ecological benefits at large spatial scales. 5. Positive examples of fisheries management, which align biodiversity conservation and social development, are important for building optimism, and influencing local and international stakeholders. Our study shows how engaging and empowering local communities to help monitor the movement ecology of target species can be an effective strategy to support the sustainable management of aquatic resources in tropical environments

Synthesis of novel Glycoconjugates derived from Alkynyl heterocycles through a click approach

Accepted author version posted online: 05 Jun 2012The synthesis of a series of novel 1,4-disubstituted 1,2,3-triazole compounds bearing a D-glucose derivative and an heteroaromatic system is described. Alkylation of isatin, 3-methyl-carbazole and one tetrahydro-gamma-carboline with propargyl bromide gave their N-propargyl derivatives in good yields. These compounds further reacted with acetylated D-glucose with the azide group in position 1, to give three final products and with peracetylated 6-azido-6-deoxy-alpha-D-methylglucoside giving the corresponding derivative of tetrahydro-gamma-carboline.FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) and FEDE

Community-based conservation with formal protection provides large collateral benefits to Amazonian migratory waterbirds

Populations of migratory waterbirds are facing dramatic declines worldwide due to illegal hunting, habitat loss and climate change. Conservation strategies to reverse these trends are imperative, especially in tropical developing countries, which almost invariably allocate insufficient levels of investment for environmental protection. Here, we compared the effectiveness of sustainable-use Protected Areas (PAs) and Community-based Conservation (CBC) arrangements for the conservation of migratory waterbirds that breed on seasonal riverine sandy beaches in Brazilian Amazonia. We modeled local population responses of four migratory waterbird species on 155 beaches along a ~1,600 km section of a major tributary of the Amazon, as a function of community enforcement, official protection status, human pressure and landscape features. We show that 21 community-protected beaches within the study area host more than 80% of all sampled birds. Black Skimmers showed the most dramatic response, with breeding numbers 135-fold larger in CBC arrangements compared to beaches with no official protection status. The same pattern was observed for nesting Large-Billed and Yellow-Billed Terns. For the Near Threatened Orinoco Goose, PA status was the strongest predictor of local population size. These dramatic results demonstrate the value of protected refugia, achieved through the concerted action of participating local communities, to support breeding populations of key waterbird species. This highly-effective and low-cost conservation model can potentially be replicated in other regions of the developing world experiencing increasingly intensive exploitation of riverine natural resources

Conservation Biogeography of the Sahara‐Sahel: additional protected areas are needed to secure unique biodiversity

Aim Identification of priority conservation areas and evaluation of coverage of the current protected areas are urgently needed to halt the biodiversity loss. Identifying regions combining similar environmental traits (climate regions) and species assemblages (biogroups) is needed for conserving the biodiversity patterns and processes. We identify climate regions and biogroups and map species diversity across the Sahara-Sahel, a large geographical area that exhibits wide environmental heterogeneity and multiple species groups with distinct biogeographical affinities, and evaluate the coverage level of current network of protected areas for biodiversity conservation. Location Sahara-Sahel, Africa. Methods We use spatially explicit climate data with the principal component analysis and model-based clustering techniques to identify climate regions. We use distributions of 1147 terrestrial vertebrates (and of 125 Sahara-Sahel endemics) and apply distance clustering methods to identify biogroups for both species groups. We apply reserve selection algorithms targeting 17% of species distribution, climate regions and biogroups to identify priority areas and gap analysis to assess their representation within the current protected areas. Results Seven climate regions were identified, mostly arranged as latitudinal belts. Concentrations of high species richness were found in the Sahel, but the central Sahara gathers most endemic and threatened species. Ten biogroups (five for endemics) were identified. A wide range of biogroups tend to overlap in specific climate regions. Identified priority areas are inadequately represented in protected areas, and six new top conservation areas are needed to achieve conservation targets. Main conclusions Biodiversity distribution in Sahara-Sahel is spatially structured and apparently related to environmental variation. Although the majority of priority conservation areas are located outside the areas of intense human activities, many cross multiple political borders and require internationally coordinated efforts for implementation and management. Optimized biodiversity conservation solutions at regional scale are needed. Our work contradicts the general idea that deserts are uniform areas and provide options for the conservation of endangered species.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Para o estudo da evolução do ensino e da formação em administração educacional em Portugal

Estudos sobre a evolução do ensino de disciplinas, na formação de professores em Portugal, são recentes. O controle burocrático centralizado reteve as dimensões do controle político-administrativo. De certo modo, protegeu a esfera educativa das influências modernizantes, do capitalismo industrial e das lógicas mercantis e gerencialistas. Defendeu a educação do domínio político, da intervenção de movimentos sociais, das propagandas de ideais democráticos e da cidadania. A utilização da designação "Administração educacional" ilustra as dificuldades sentidas, ao longo dos últimos anos, em termos da construção acadêmica de uma área, seja pela falta de tradição, seja pelos antecedentes históricos.In Portugal, studies about the evolution of disciplines teaching in the teachers formation are recent. The centralized bureaucratic control has held back the dimensions of politic administrative control. In a certain way, it has protected the education against the new-fashioned influences, manufacturing capitalism, and mercantile and managerial logics. This centralized bureaucratic control has also profected the education against the politic dominion, the intervention of social movements, the advertising of democratic ideals, and against the citizenship. The use of the term "Educational administration" shows the difficulties met by the searchers along the latest years, since there is no tradiction nor historic antecedence

Sustainable strategies based on glycine–betaine analogue ionic liquids for the recovery of monoclonal antibodies from cell culture supernatants

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are of crucial interest for therapeutic purposes, particularly in vaccination and immunization, and in the treatment of life-threatening diseases. However, their downstream processing from the complex cell culture media in which they are produced still requires multiple steps, making mAbs extremely high-cost products. Therefore, the development of cost-effective, sustainable and biocompatible purification strategies for mAbs is in high demand to decrease the associated economic, environmental and health burdens. Herein, novel aqueous biphasic systems (ABS) composed of glycine–betaine analogue ionic liquids (AGB-ILs) and K2HPO4/KH2PO4 at pH 7.0, the respective three-phase partitioning (TPP) systems, and hybrid processes combined with ultrafiltration were investigated and compared in terms of performance as alternative strategies for the purification and recovery of anti-human interleukin-8 (anti-IL-8) mAbs, which are specific therapeutics in the treatment of inflammatory diseases, from Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell culture supernatants. With the studied ABS, mAbs preferentially partition to the IL-rich phase, with recovery yields up to 100% and purification factors up to 1.6. The best systems were optimized in what concerns the IL concentration, allowing to take advantage of IL-based three-phase partitioning approaches where a precipitate enriched in mAbs is obtained at the ABS interface, yielding 41.0% of IgG with a purification factor of 2.7 (purity of 60.9%). Hybrid processes combining the two previous techniques and an ultrafiltration step were finally applied, allowing the recovery of mAbs from the different fractions in an appropriate buffer solution for further biopharmaceutical formulations, while allowing the simultaneous IL removal and reuse. The best results were obtained with the hybrid process combining TPP and ultrafiltration, allowing to obtain mAbs with a purity higher than 60%. The recyclability of the IL was additionally demonstrated, revealing no losses in the purification and recovery performance of these systems for mAbs. The biological activity of anti-IL-8 mAbs is maintained after the several purification and recovery steps, indicating that the novel ABS, three-phase partitioning and hybrid processes comprising AGB-ILs are promising and sustainable strategies in mAbs downstream processing.publishe

Building a Portuguese Coalition for Biodiversity Genomics

The diverse physiography of the Portuguese land and marine territory, spanning from continental Europe to the Atlantic archipelagos, has made it an important repository of biodiversity throughout the Pleistocene glacial cycles, leading to a remarkable diversity of species and ecosystems. This rich biodiversity is under threat from anthropogenic drivers, such as climate change, invasive species, land use changes, overexploitation or pathogen (re)emergence. The inventory, characterization and study of biodiversity at inter- and intra-specific levels using genomics is crucial to promote its preservation and recovery by informing biodiversity conservation policies, management measures and research. The participation of researchers from Portuguese institutions in the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) initiative, and its pilot effort to generate reference genomes for European biodiversity, has reinforced the establishment of Biogenome Portugal. This nascent institutional network will connect the national community of researchers in genomics. Here, we describe the Portuguese contribution to ERGA’s pilot effort, which will generate high-quality reference genomes of six species from Portugal that are endemic, iconic and/or endangered, and include plants, insects and vertebrates (fish, birds and mammals) from mainland Portugal or the Azores islands. In addition, we outline the objectives of Biogenome Portugal, which aims to (i) promote scientific collaboration, (ii) contribute to advanced training, (iii) stimulate the participation of institutions and researchers based in Portugal in international biodiversity genomics initiatives, and (iv) contribute to the transfer of knowledge to stakeholders and engaging the public to preserve biodiversity. This initiative will strengthen biodiversity genomics research in Portugal and fuel the genomic inventory of Portuguese eukaryotic species. Such efforts will be critical to the conservation of the country’s rich biodiversity and will contribute to ERGA’s goal of generating reference genomes for European species.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio