USO DO SOLO E COBERTURA VEGETAL NA BACIA DO ALTO CURSO DO RIO UBERABA

As informações geradas do meio físico, levando em consideração a declividade, solos e uso das terras, permitem conhecer as características e as condições das áreas, fornecendo subsídios para atividades de análise ambiental e planejamento conservacionista. O presente estudo teve objetivo de delimitar, identificar e avaliar as diferentes categorias de uso do solo e cobertura vegetal na área bacia do alto curso do rio Uberaba, numa área de aproximadamente 528 km2, localizadas entre as coordenadas geográficas 19° 30’ e 19o 45’ sul e 47o 38’ e 48o 00’ oeste de Greenwich. Utilizou-se técnicas de geoprocessamento e sensoriamento remoto para mapeamento da bacia em estudo. A cobertura vegetal natural remanescente é caracterizada pelos seguintes tipos: mata/cerradão (galeria, topo e encostas), cerrado, campo cerrado (sujo) que juntos perfazem o equivalente a 30.363,57 hectares (57% da área); A vegetação natural vem sendo substituída em sua maior parte por pastagens e cultura anuais; A área em estudo é caracterizada em sua maior parte pelo seu relevo plano com baixas declividades; Os canais de 1º e 2º ordem dos córregos que nascem nas bordas da chapada é que mantém o volume de água do rio Uberaba no período seco

Avaliação da deterioração socioeconômica e ambiental da microbacia do córrego Saudade, afluente do rio Uberaba.

O manejo integrado da bacia hidrográfica visa à recuperação ambiental dessas unidades, buscando o equilíbrio dos ecossistemas, visando a sustentabilidade e uso dos recursos naturais renováveis. Com objetivo de avaliar a deterioração socioeconômica e ambiental na microbacia do córrego Saudade, foram aplicados os questionários adaptados do CIDIAT em 75% das propriedades da área em estudo, onde foram abordados aspectos socioeconômicos e ambientais. Os índices calculados para deterioração social, econômica, tecnológica, socioeconômica e ambiental foi de 47,4; 82,6; 55,9; 53,5 e 20,8%, respectivamente. A microbacia do córrego Saudade se encontra em elevado processo de deterioração, com mais de 50% da área comprometida; A deterioração para o fator econômico de 82,6% reflete as condições precárias de vida do morador da região; o valor obtido para deterioração ambiental de 20,8% não reflete o que foi observado nas visitas de campo

Traffic control with autopilot as an alternative to decrease soil compaction in sugarcane areas

Control the machinery traffic through autopilot and use the combined spacing of two rows are possible solutions to mitigate soil compaction problems. The objective of this study was to evaluate traffic control using autopilot in order to soften the problem of soil compaction in mechanically-harvested sugarcane areas. The study was conducted in two experimental areas belonging to Usina Santa Fe, in New Europe, São Paulo, Brazil. The design was a randomized block design, with 3 treatments: T1 = sugarcane planted in single spacing and without autopilot (1.50 m); T2 = sugarcane planted in single line spacing and managed on autopilot; T3 = sugarcane planted under combined spacing of two rows (1.50 × 0.90 m) and managed with autopilot, with 4 replications. Was collected samples in the wheel row (WR) and the seedbed (SB), which was located next to the plant row to, in layers from 0.00 to 0.15 and 0.15-0.30 m. It was observed that the seed bed area showed higher porosity in the treatments with autopilot in the second year of evaluation. There were no differences in pore sizes and shapes between the treatments in the two years studied. The large and complex pores were observed to be reduced in the second evaluation year.The authors thank the Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP) for funding the research, through projects linked to the processes 2012 / 21094-0 and 2012 / 144-6

Spatial variability of apparent electrical conductivity and physicochemical attributes of the soil

The apparent electrical conductivity has been an attribute widely used in studies of spatial variability, due to its high correlation with other soil attributes and because it is an attribute that represents the variability of an area in a quick, easy and low-cost way. The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the spatial variability of apparent electrical conductivity with physicochemical attributes of an Eutrophic Red Oxisol located in Maracaju, state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, for determining specific soil management zones. We analyzed apparent electrical conductivity attributes (ECa 2, 7 and 15 kHz), contents of potassium, cation exchange capacity, clay, base saturation and organic matter content. ECa was measured with the Profiler EMP-400 crossing the entire area in 0.45 m spaced lines. Soil samples were collected in the 0.000.20 m layer, with a total of 216 samples in an area of 70 ha. Statistical and geostatistical analyses were performed by SAS and GS+ software. The apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) was presented as an important tool to identify specific management zones showing data variability between low and medium zones. The attributes that had higher correlation with apparent electrical conductivity were potassium and clay

Erythrina velutina Willd. alkaloids : piecing biosynthesis together from transcriptome analysis and metabolite profiling of seeds and leaves

Introduction: Natural products of pharmaceutical interest often do not reach the drug market due to the associated low yields and difficult extraction. Knowledge of biosynthetic pathways is a key element in the development of biotechnological strategies for plant specialized metabolite production. Erythrina species are mainly used as central nervous system depressants in folk medicine and are important sources of bioactive tetracyclic benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs), which can act on several pathology-related biological targets. Objectives: In this sense, in an unprecedented approach used with a non-model Fabaceae species grown in its unique arid natural habitat, a combined transcriptome and metabolome analyses (seeds and leaves) is presented. Methods: The Next Generation Sequencing-based transcriptome (de novo RNA sequencing) was carried out in a NextSeq 500 platform. Regarding metabolite profiling, the High-resolution Liquid Chromatography was coupled to DAD and a micrOTOF-QII mass spectrometer by using electrospray ionization (ESI) and Time of Flight (TOF) analyzer. The tandem MS/MS data were processed and analyzed through Molecular Networking approach. Results: This detailed macro and micromolecular approach applied to seeds and leaves of E. velutina revealed 42 alkaloids, several of them unique. Based on the combined evidence, 24 gene candidates were put together in a putative pathway leading to the singular alkaloid diversity of this species. Conclusion: Overall, these results could contribute by indicating potential biotechnological targets formodulation of erythrina alkaloids biosynthesis as well as improve molecular databases with omic data from a non-model medicinal plant, and reveal an interesting chemical diversity of Erythrina BIA harvested in Caatinga

Erica: Prevalence Of Metabolic Syndrome In Brazilian Adolescents

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)To determine the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its components in Brazilian adolescents. METHODS: We evaluated 37,504 adolescents who were participants in the Study of Cardiovascular Risks in Adolescents (ERICA), a cross-sectional, school-based, national study. The adolescents, aged from 12 to 17 years, lived in cities with populations greater than 100,000 inhabitants. The sample was stratified and clustered into schools and classes. The criteria set out by the International Diabetes Federation were used to define metabolic syndrome. Prevalences of metabolic syndrome were estimated according to sex, age group, school type and nutritional status. RESULTS: Of the 37,504 adolescents who were evaluated: 50.2% were female; 54.3% were aged from 15 to 17 years, and 73.3% were from public schools. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 2.6% (95% CI 2.3-2.9), slightly higher in males and in those aged from 15 to 17 years in most macro-regions. The prevalence was the highest in residents from the South macro-region, in the younger female adolescents and in the older male adolescents. The prevalence was higher in public schools (2.8% [95% CI 2.4-3.2]), when compared with private schools (1.9% [95% CI 1.4-2.4]) and higher in obese adolescents when compared with nonobese ones. The most common combinations of components, referring to 3/4 of combinations, were: enlarged waist circumference (WC), low HDL-cholesterol (HDL-c) and high blood pressure; followed by enlarged WC, low HDL-c and high triglycerides; and enlarged WC, low HDL-c, high triglycerides and blood pressure. Low HDL was the second most frequent component, but the highest prevalence of metabolic syndrome (26.8%) was observed in the presence of high triglycerides. CONCLUSIONS: ERICA is the first Brazilian nation-wide study to present the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and describe the role of its components. Despite the prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome being low, the high prevalences of some components and participation of others in the syndrome composition shows the importance of early diagnosis of this changes, even if not grouped within the metabolic syndrome.501Department of Science and Technology of the Secretariat of Science, Technology and Strategic Inputs of the Ministry of Health (Decit/SCTIE/MS)Health Sectorial Fund (Fundo Setorial de Saude - CT-Saude) of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI)FINEP [01090421]CNPq [2010/565037-2]Research Incentive Fund of the Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre - (Fundo de Incentivo a Pesquisa do Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre - FIPE-HCPA) [405.009/2012-7]Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016