Diversidade de invertebrados em cavernas calcárias do oeste potiguar : subsídios para a determinação de áreas prioritárias para conservação.

It is estimated that the Brazilian karst areas sum about 200.000 km2. The caves, one of the main components of karst, are important windows into the biological studies on hypogean environments. In Rio Grande do Norte are known 563 caves, and 476 of them are in the municipalities of Baraúna, Felipe Guerra, Governador Dix-Sept Rosado, Apodi and Mossoró, the Western region of the State. However, like in the rest of the country, the cave fauna of the State is still poorly understood. This study used data from invertebrates harvested in 47 caves and aimed to analyze the effect of environmental change between the dry and rainy seasons in the communities of cave invertebrates, characterize these communities and evaluate the relationships between morphological and biotic variables of the caves and surroundings, and to define priority areas for conservation of cave environments of the study area from biotic parameters. Strong effects were found in the community structure of cave invertebrates due environmental changes between seasons, with values of total richness, abundance, diversity and ecological complexity significantly higher in the rainy season. It was possible to assess how the morphology of the cave and the external environment variables affect the biotic system, so that the variety of resources, forest cover in the vicinity, the area of the cave and its entrance were the variables that best explained the structure communities of cave invertebrates in the region. High values of total richness of invertebrates (36,62 ± 14,04 spp / cave) and troglomorphic species (61 species, mean 1,77 ± 2,34 spp / cave) were found and, given the biological relevance in the context of the area national and the imminent anthropogenic pressures existing, we defined four priority areas for actions aiming cave biodiversity conservation in the region.

Caracterização ecológica dos peixes recifais do Atol das Rocas

The present work was carried out at the Atol das Rocas (3º 51 S; 33º 49 W), the only atoll of the South Atlantic and the first Brazilian marine protected area. It was guided by the following hypothesis: the composition of the fish communities varies in agreement with the position of the pools; in other words, with or without permanent ocean connection. To test the validity of this hypothesis, the fish abundance was estimated in the connected pools (Barretinha/Barreta Falsa) and unconnected ones (Cemiteriozinho/Âncoras), carrying an ecological characterization of the fishes that inhabit these pools. Additionally, the structural complexity of the sampled places was also evaluated intending to verify the variations of the abundance and diversity of fishes in function to this factor. By the fact of this research was being carried out through the limits of a conservation unit, the samples was realized using visual census techniques. The results generated through uni and multivariate analytic techniques allowed the evidence that decisive factor in the density, richness and diversity variations of fishes are linked to the substratum type (Hard / Soft bottom) and not by the fact that the pool are or are not connected permanently to the ocean. In relation to the structural complexity; 58% of the variations in the diversity of fishes were attributed to changes in the structural complexity, while 12% of the variations in the abundance were attributed to the structural complexity

Uma ecologia de base complexa

This thesis objective systemize and discuss the ecological knowledge constructed by means of tradition knowledge with basis in a complex ecology (MORIN, 2002b). The conception of tradition knowledge (ALMEIDA, 2001c) corresponds to a diversity of knowledgement, of men and women, constructed from heteroclite elements of the geographic way, making use of analogies and homologies which serves as the base for this scientific inquiry. These knowledge are extremely related the context where these people are inserted. To construct an ecology of complex base is to understand that the reality is not given previously, and that its construction assumes indissociability among the elements that composes it, that is, between nature and society, material and immaterial elements. To incorporate the disorder, the uncertainty, the unpredictable and the auto-echo-organization as guide principles of a new ecology, constitutes in a new vision of the biological science and the scientific ecology in direction to a science of complexity. The work focuses the ecological knowledge of the Piató lagoon, municipality of Açu, in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, having as interlocutor of this boarding Mr. Francisco Lucas da Silva (known in the local as Chico Lucas), fisherman and agriculturist, who was born, and lives until today, in the community of Areia Branca, around the lagoon. Having for base the method as strategy (MORIN, 2001a), the research construction was performed through the realization of more than 10 trips carried out between the years of 2005 and 2007. In these trips the ecological aspects of the environments such as, the flora and the fauna, as well as the environmental impacts on the lagoon, were obtained in recorded dialogues and interviews with Chico Lucas, which were later transcripts. The information from there showed a natural and social complex reality, little known by Cartesian science, since it brings a wealth of details of daily life full, over all, for tradition knowing of the people that had lived there and the ones who remain living there. The thesis looks to understand the strategies of thought and the knowledge production referring to traditional knowing and its ability of interchange between different cognitive operators. The ecological knowledge that emerges of these knows reveals a systemic perception of the environment, presenting the beings and phenomena in its peculiarities and its degrees of complexity, but immutable in its indissociability

Estudo da circulação hidrodinâmica e da dispersão de óleo na zona costeira entre Macau e Galinhos RN

This paper presents a study on coastal hydrodynamics and the spread of an oil spill in waters off Macau and Galinhos, on the east coast of the state of Rio Grande do Norte in Northeast Brazil. This area has a very marked coastal dynamic owing to the complexity of its geomorphological features, developed in a regime of semidiurnal mesotides involving reefs, spits, estuaries, mangroves, lakes and dunes. The region also plays an important role in the socioeconomic development of the state, given that the production of oil, natural gas, salt and shrimp is concentrated there. The series of oil platforms is interconnected by a pipeline system that carries oil to the local terminal. This pipeline could leak at any moment, causing immense ecological damage. To gauge the risks of an oil leak and resulting contamination of the coastal region, two hydrodynamic scenarios were simulated. The results obtained were used to implement a contaminant transport model with the creation of various oil leak scenarios modeled at different volumes (from small to large) and intensities (sporadic and continuous), at points considered critical for the model (on two platforms and at two pipeline intersections), under different wind (summer and winter) and tidal (high and low at new, full and quarter moon phases) conditions. The use of hydrodynamic circulation computer models as a tool for representing a real project design has been increasingly frequent in recent years, given that they enable the realistic simulation of the hydrodynamic circulation pattern in bodies of water and an analysis of the impacts caused by contaminants released into the water. This study used the computer models contained in SisBAHIA®, in continuous development in the area of Coastal Engineering and Oceanography at COPPE/UFRJ

Percepção ambiental de crianças em ambientes naturais protegidos

This study aimed at exploring and describing children s perceptions in threatened natural settings, specifically, the Rain Forest in Brazil. Several studies point to the significance of perceptions for people s pro-environmental attitudes and actions. We try to understand the person-environment interaction from an ecological perspective, and we present theoretical references for the understanding of how crucial nature is for psychological development and well-being. The children s drawings, individual interviews, discussion groups, photographies and informal and indirect sources, as teachers, brought material for the analysis. Participated in our study, carried on through a multi-method strategy, 209 children from six to eleven years old, living in the neighborhood of the Biological Reserve of Una, State of Bahia, created to protect Rain Forest fragments. The Rain Forest landscape is well portrayed in children s drawings, the vegetal elements prevailing over artificial and human elements. The figured plants and trees, however, are pointed with no precision as to their species. Most of the defined species are eatable. The children seem to be aware of the environment degradation, and of the importance of its conservation, but they describe episodes of hunting and feeding wild threatened animals. Our results indicate a utilitarian trend in the perception of living beings, in terms of their immediate usefulness for people. The multimethod approach seems to be appropriate to the complexity of the theme; the methodological strategies were well accepted by the children, offering them opportunities to express themselves. We observed how children, in different life phases, organize natural elements and processes in their drawings, and how these images relate to the local landscape. We discuss the results in the light of theoretical references of personenvironment studies and from previous investigations about children s perceptions of natural environment

Macrofauna de ambientes não consolidados adjacentes à recifes da área de proteção ambiental dos recifes de corais Rio Grande do Norte, Brasil

This study aimed to characterize, for the first time, the benthic invertebrates that inhabit the region of soft bottoms adjacent to the APARC reefs in order to situate them as an important component of infralittoral coastal areas of Northeast Brazil. Soft bottoms areas of APARC corresponds to infralittoral zones vegetated by seagrass Halodule wrightii and unvegetated infralittoral zones, both subjected to substantial hydrodynamic stress. Through scuba diving, biological and sedimentary samples of both habitats were analyzed, with a cylindrical sampler. We identified 6160 individuals belonging to 16 groups and 224 species. The most abundant macrofaunal group was Polychaeta (43%), followed by Mollusca (25%) and Crustacea (14%), what was expected for these environments. In the first chapter, regarding vegetated areas, we tested three hypotheses: the existence of differences in the faunal structure associated with H. wrightii banks submitted to different hydrodynamic conditions; the occurrence of minor temporal variations on the associated macrofauna of banks protected from hydrodynamic stress; and if the diversity of macrofauna is affected by both benthophagous predators and H. wrightii biomass. It was observed that macrofauna associated at the Exposed bank showed differences in structure when comparing the Protected bank, the granulometry of the sediments, that co-varies with the hydrodynamism, was the cause of these variations. The results also pointed to a lower temporal variation in the macrofaunal structure on the Protected bank and a negative relation between macrofaunal and benthophagous fish abundance. At the Exposed bank, a greater faunal diversity was observed, probably due to the higher seagrass biomass. The second chapter compares the vegetated and non-vegetated areas in order to test the hypothesis that due to greater seasonal stability in tropical environments, seagrass structure would act to distinguish the vegetated and non-vegetated areas macrofauna, over time. It was also expected that depositivores were the most representative invertebrates on non-vegetated environments, on the assumption that the seagrass bank would work as a source of debris to adjacent areas, enriching them. Considering all sampling periods, the total macrofauna abundance and diversity were higher in vegetated areas, when compared to non-vegetated ones. Seasonally, the structural complexity provided by Halodule differentiated more clearly the fauna from vegetated and non-vegetated areas, but only at the climatic extremes, i.e. Dry season (extreme climatic stability, with low hydronamism variation) and Rainy season (great hydrodynamism variation and probably vegetated bank burial). Furthermore, the high organic matter levels measured in the sandy banks coincided with an outstanding trophic importance of deposit feeders, proving the debris-carrying hypothesis. The last chapter focused on the non-vegetated areas, where we tested that the hypothesis infaunal halo in tropical reefs depending on local granulometry. In this context, we also tested the hypothesis that benthophagous fish predation would have an effect on the low abundance of macrofaunal groups due to the high hydrographic stress, thus allowing other predatory groups to have greater importance in these environments. Proving the hypothesis, no spatial variation, both on abundance families neither on community structure, occur along distance of the edge reefs. However, we found that complex combinations of physical factors (grain size and organic matter levels originated from local hydronamic conditions) covary with the distance from the reefs and has stronger influence on macrofauna than considered biological factors, such as predation by benthophagous fishes. Based on the main results, this study shows that unconsolidated areas around APARC reefs are noteworthy from an ecological and conservational point of view, as evidenced by the biota-environment and organismal relations, never before described for these areas