9 research outputs found
Strategies to reach global sustainability should take better account of ecosystem services
No full text
Ecosystem services or nature's contributions? Reasons behind different interpretations in Latin America
No full textPeople depend on nature in multiple ways and there is increasing concern about how the current unsustainable use of natural resources will compromise human well-being. In this context, there is a debate about the usefulness of the terms ecosystem services (ES) and nature's contributions to people (NCP) in addressing this problem, but so far no research has been dedicated to investigating the reasons behind this. We, therefore, performed a data-based study to explore the potential explanations for the use and perceptions of the differences between the ES and NCP terms. Based on a questionnaire among 150 participants in the ESP Latin America and the Caribbean conference in 2018, we demonstrate that the choice for using one or both terms is related to the perception of the differences between them and to specific professional traits. We detected that researchers that use quantitative methods are predominantly inclined to use ES while researchers using qualitative methods use the NCP-term. Despite the predominant preference for one of the two terms, a considerable percentage of researchers used both. Our results suggest that rather than emphasizing perceived conflicts between ES and NCP terms, they can be used in a complementary way and have the potential to reach multiple audiences
Ecosystem services delivered by Brazilian mammals: spatial and taxonomic patterns and comprehensive list of species
No full textInternational audienc
Correction to: First large-scale study reveals important losses of managed honey bee and stingless bee colonies in Latin America (Scientific Reports, (2024), 14, 1, (10079), 10.1038/s41598-024-59513-6). [author correction].
No full textABSTRACT.- Correction to: Scientific Reportshttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-59513-6, published online 02 May 2024. The PDF version of this Article contained errors in Equations 1 and 2, where the equations were incompletely displayed. The correct equations are displayed below: (Formula presented.) (Formula presented.) The original Article has been corrected. © The Author(s) 2024
Actions to halt biodiversity loss generally benefit the climate
No full textThe two most urgent and interlinked environmental challenges humanity faces are climate change and biodiversity loss. We are entering a pivotal decade for both the international biodiversity and climate change agendas with the sharpening of ambitious strategies and targets by the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Within their respective Conventions, the biodiversity and climate interlinked challenges have largely been addressed separately. There is evidence that conservation actions that halt, slow or reverse biodiversity loss can simultaneously slow anthropogenic mediated climate change significantly. This review highlights conservation actions which have the largest potential for mitigation of climate change. We note that conservation actions have mainly synergistic benefits and few antagonistic trade-offs with climate change mitigation. Specifically, we identify direct co-benefits in 14 out of the 21 action targets of the draft post-2020 global biodiversity framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, notwithstanding the many indirect links that can also support both biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. These relationships are context and scale-dependent; therefore, we showcase examples of local biodiversity conservation actions that can be incentivized, guided and prioritized by global objectives and targets. The close interlinkages between biodiversity, climate change mitigation, other nature’s contributions to people and good quality of life are seldom as integrated as they should be in management and policy. This review aims to re-emphasize the vital relationships between biodiversity conservation actions and climate change mitigation in a timely manner, in support to major Conferences of Parties that are about to negotiate strategic frameworks and international goals for the decades to come
Análise da efetividade de manejo em uma área importante para a conservação das aves e da biodiversidade: o caso do Parque Estadual da Serra do Tabuleiro, Santa Catarina, Brasil
No full textDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geografia, Florianópolis, 2015.O presente estudo objetivou identificar as ameaças existentes sobre a IBA ? Parque estadual da Serra do Tabuleiro (IBA PAEST), os padrões espaciais de 17 espécies de aves ameaças de extinção com hábitos florestais, analisar temporalmente a variação da sua cobertura vegetal entre os anos de 2001 e 2012, que culminaram na identificação do seu estado de conservação, além das ações desenvolvidas pelo órgão gestor da unidade para a manutenção das espécies de aves globalmente ameaçadas de extinção. A efetividade de manejo foi avaliada por meio do quadro metodológico baseado na Estrutura Global de Monitoramento em Áreas Importantes para a Conservação das Aves, idealizada pela BirdLife em 2006. Com esta pesquisa foi identificado que a IBA ? PAEST possui uma efetividade de manejo baixa, o que pode ser traduzida com insatisfatória, tornando-a uma IBA em perigo. As piores classificações entre os indicadores analisados ocorreram nos itens de planejamento da administração e ações de conservação. Quanto aos indicadores que mediram os níveis de ameaça na unidade, os que obtiveram valores de impacto muito alto foram as atividades agrícolas, caça predatória, expansão urbana e poluição por resíduos sólidos. No caso dos indicadores que mediram o estado dos ecossistemas da IBA ? PAEST, obtido pela análise temporal das imagens de satélite, obteve-se uma classificação boa, na qual os valores foram maiores que 90% em relação ao seu potencial ótimo. Os resultados demonstraram uma perda de cobertura florestal de 283 hectares durante o período de doze anos. Com relação a análise dos mapas de distribuição das espécies estudadas, foi constatado que cinco espécies de aves não possuem distribuição para a IBA ? PAEST, conforme o banco de dados da IUCN. Porém, as mesmas foram avistadas na área durante as campanhas de campo. Importante destacar que foram avistadas 87 diferentes espécies de aves durante esta pesquisa, sendo que 10 destas estão ameaçadas de extinção. Este total equivale a 24% das espécies existentes nos limites da unidade (360). Com relação ao método adotado para avaliar e classificar as ameaças sobre a IBA ? PAEST, suas condições e as ações de conservação, o mesmo permitiu a obtenção de um resultado claro e compreensível, podendo ser replicado para análises futuras emoutras IBAs presentes no Estado de Santa Catarina. Em termos gerais, os indicadores corresponderam com eficiência às expectativas iniciais, permitindo responder aos objetivos propostos para a pesquisa.Abstract : This study?s goal is to identify threats within an IBA - Serra do Tabuleiro State Park -, the spatial patterns of 17 forest bird species threatened with extinction and to assess the parks forest cover between 2001 and 2012. By those means, this study intends to identify the park?s conservation state and the actions developed by its management body for the maintenance of bird species globally threatened with extinction. Management effectiveness is assessed within a methodological structure based on the ?Monitoring Important Bird Areas: a global framework?, created by BirdLife in 2006. This study identified that Serra do Tabuleiro State Park has very low or unsatisfactory management success, which means that this is an endangered IBA. The worse indicators were related to management and conservation actions. As for the indicators that measured threat levels in the park, the ones with higher values were farming, predatory hunting, urban growth and solid residues pollution. The indicators that measured ecosystem? state, obtained by temporal analyses of satellite images, reached a good classification, with values higher than 90% (great potential). The results showed 283 hectares of forest lost during the period of twelve years.Five bird species that were not yet correctly included on BirdLife?s distribution maps in fact were visualized in the park?s area. It is important to notice that 87 bird species (24% of the total number of species officially registered within the park?s boundaries, 360) were seeing during field trips ? ten threatened with extinction. The method applied to evaluate and classify the park?s threats, conditions and conservation actions, allowed this study to obtain clear and easily comprehensible results that can be replicated in future assessments in other IBAs on Santa Catarina State. The indicators corresponded efficiently to the initial expectations allowing the author to answer to this research?s objectives
Search for new particles in events with one lepton and missing transverse momentum in collisions at = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
No full text28 pages plus author list (49 pages total), 4 figures, 11 tables, submitted to JHEP, All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/EXOT-2013-10/This paper presents a search for new particles in events with one lepton (electron or muon) and missing transverse momentum using 20.3 of proton-proton collision data at TeV recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. No significant excess beyond Standard Model expectations is observed. A with Sequential Standard Model couplings is excluded at the 95% confidence level for masses up to 3.24 TeV. Excited chiral bosons () with equivalent coupling strengths are excluded for masses up to 3.21 TeV. In the framework of an effective field theory limits are also set on the dark matter-nucleon scattering cross-section as well as the mass scale of the unknown mediating interaction for dark matter pair production in association with a leptonically decaying
The molecular genetics of bipolar affective disorder : South African populations, endophenotypes, and environmental influence
No full textIncludes bibliographical references.The identification of the genetic variants underpinning bipolar disorder (BPD) has been impeded by a complex pattern of inheritance that may include by genetic heterogeneity, genetic epistasis, gene-environment interactions, incomplete penetrance and variable expressivity. In this thesis three strategies were employed to ameliorate these confounding factors. The first strategy was to focus on a theoretically genetically-homogeneous population with BPD. A unique South African sample including 190 individuals of the relativity reproductively-isolated Afrikaner population yielded promising evidence of linkage to chromosome 1 q31-32 and weaker peaks at lOq23 and 13q32, regions previously implicated in the disorder. A family-based analysis suggested that the 3' variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) variant of the dopamine transporter gene (DAT) is associated with bipolar-spectrum illness in the 132-strong sample of British ancestry. The second strategy was to carry out genetic linkage and association analyses using quantitative traits (elldophenotypes) that were closely associated with BPD. As part of this process a variety of personality traits were evaluated in the cohort, and anxiety related, novelty-seeking, hyperthymic, and cyclothymic personality traits were found to aggregate in participants with BPD and to a lesser extent repeated unipolar illness (MDE-R). These traits were therefore used as quantitative markers or endophenotypes of BPD. The quantitative linkage analysis indicated that a variant in the region of 13q32 may influence the development of novelty-seeking-related traits in the largest Afrikaner pedigree, while the personality trait, ""Stability"", was weakly linked to 4p16 in the total sample. The catechol-o-methytransferase (COM1) Va1l58Mct and the Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) Va1l66Met polymorphisms were associated with mood-labile-cyclothymic and hyperthymic·-novelty-seeking traits, respectively. the DA T VNTR and the Notch4 exonic repeat variants were associated with a broad range of ""pathological"" personality traits in the sa11lples of British and Afrikaner origin, respectively. The sample was also evaluated with a battery of neuropsychological tasks and the BPD 1 and MDE-R groups displayed both verbal and visual memory recall deficits while the BPD 1 sample also suffered from recognition memory deficits. The neurocognitive trait, ""Memory"" was therefore used as a second endophenotype generating potential linkage signals on IOq23 and 22q 11. The exonic 48bp VNTR polymorphism in the dopamine 4 receptor (DRD4) gene was associated with '""Memory"" performance. As a third strategy, a potentially important aetiological factor, childhood trauma, was measured, and used to test for gene-environment interactions between the various candidate genes and bipolar-illness or BPD-related endophenotypes in the cohort. BPD and M DE-R individuals displayed significantly higher levels of emotional and physical abuse, and the former variable was also associated with the development of anxiety-related and unstable personality traits. A functional variant of the COM1 gene was found to interact with abuse to predispose to anxiety-related, unstable cyclothymic and novelty-seeking related personality traits. The combination of childhood abuse and possession of low-activity MAO-A gene variants was also associated the development of more anxious and unstable personality traits. All interaction between sexual abuse and the B])NF gene modulated performance on verbal and visual memory tasks. A similar interaction between the ApoE gene and sexual abuse was observed. Although a number of theoretical obstacles remain to be resolved, the analyses of isolated populations coupled with the use of endophenotypes and the testing or gene environment interactions, holds out great promise for the eventual elucidation of the genetic basis of hi polar affective disorder
