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

Saúde mental e vulnerabilidade ao stress nos gerontes viúvo(a)s em contexto rural

Dissertação de mestrado em Psicogerontologia comunitária. Instituto Politécnico de Beja, Escola Superior de Educação, 2013.Um dos acontecimentos de vida que surge durante o envelhecimento é a viuvez, como tal é preciso reorganizar a vida e realizar o processo de luto. O luto é a fase em que se expressam os sentimentos resultantes da perda e é também o momento em que é possível recomeçar e até fazer novos investimentos pessoais. Há que preservar a saúde mental dos viúvos, prevenindo a depressão e o stress assim como dar primazia à promoção do bem estar psicológico. O presente estudo parte teve como finalidade conhecer a saúde geral, a saúde mental e a vulnerabilidade ao stress dos entrevistados de modo a compreender como se adaptaram à condição de viúvo (a)s, assim como o suporte social e os fatores protetores que facilitaram todo o processo de viuvez e luto. Participam neste estudo indivíduos de ambos os géneros, viúvos de idade igual ou superior a 65 anos residentes no baixo Alentejo (concelhos de Grândola e Santiago do Cacém). Os instrumentos aplicados aos indivíduos foram: Questionário de Saúde Geral (Goldberg,1978) - Versão Portuguesa, (Faria,1999), o Teste de Avaliação Neuropsicológica – Entrevista Semi-Estruturada sobre Saúde Mental e Bem-estar em Gerontes (Faria, et al, 2012) e o Questionário de Vulnerabilidade ao Stress – 23 QVS (Vaz Serra, 2000).Os indivíduos apresentam uma boa perceção geral de saúde () No “Questionário de Saúde Geral” o grupo obteve um valor médio de (M= 46,25) uma elevada perceção geral de saúde geral e no “Questionário de Vulnerabilidade ao Stress” (23 QVS) apresenta o valor médio de (M= 41) o que demonstra que o grupo não apresenta vulnerabilidade ao stress. Os entrevistados parecem lidar de uma forma serena com a sua viuvez contudo o isolamento social parece ser evidente, como tal o projeto “Partilhar saberes e conviver” parece-nos uma mais valia na diminuição desse mesmo sentimento, através da partilha de saberes e da promoção de contatos inter geracionais

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved