A Plant Needs Ants like a Dog Needs Fleas: Myrmelachista schumanni Ants Gall Many Tree Species to Create Housing

Hundreds of tropical plant species house ant colonies in specialized chambers called domatia. When, in 1873, Richard Spruce likened plant-ants to fleas and asserted that domatia are ant-created galls, he incited a debate that lasted almost a century. Although we now know that domatia are not galls and that most ant-plant interactions are mutualisms and not parasitisms, we revisit Spruce`s suggestion that ants can gall in light of our observations of the plant-ant Myrmelachista schumanni, which creates clearings in the Amazonian rain forest called ""supay-chakras,"" or ""devil`s gardens."" We observed swollen scars on the trunks of nonmyrmecophytic canopy trees surrounding supay-chakras, and within these swellings, we found networks of cavities inhabited by M. schumanni. Here, we summarize the evidence supporting the hypothesis that M. schumanni ants make these galls, and we hypothesize that the adaptive benefit of galling is to increase the amount of nesting space available to M. schumanni colonies.

Guia para representação de coleção viva temática de plantas medicinais em jardins botânicos

O cenário mundial que foi se desenhando na segunda metade do século XX, relacionado às questões do ambiente e cujos reflexos se fizeram sentir no estado das espécies vivas, despertou as autoridades a pensarem em ações estratégicas garantidoras da vida. Dessa preocupação emergiu o compromisso assumido por jardins botânicos, voltado para o desenvolvimento de programas de conservação da diversidade vegetal e educação ambiental, capazes de promover mudanças na forma de pensar as questões relacionadas com o ambiente. As coleções vivas em jardins botânicos se colocam como instrumentos e cenário para trabalhar questões ambientais, promovendo debates e discussões sobre questões que afetam a vida. Neste sentido, a coleção medicinal, por sua constituição, facilita o trabalho construtivo, as articulações e conexões necessárias para despertar interesse do público através do reconhecimento dos seus significados da vida cotidiana. A experiência na condução da coleção, a observação ostensiva e o desenvolvimento de atividades evidenciaram o potencial da coleção medicinal como lugar de experiência, que permite trabalhar com uma diversidade de grupos: o público em geral, grupos comunitários, de saber popular, comunidade científica na área da medicina, da farmácia, da divulgação científica, da educação ambiental, da etnobotânica e da biologia. Assim, um guia contemplando os itens que facilitam o trabalho do curador é uma maneira de estimular a representação dessa tipologia de coleção em jardins botânicos e, por conseguinte, permitir que seu jardim desempenhe o papel de interlocutor entre ciência e sociedade e venha a ser protagonista da mudança para uma nova forma de relação com os recursos naturais.

Cidades desejáveis e o impacto de iniciativas verdes para torná-las possíveis

O presente trabalho trata do impacto de iniciativas verdes para o aprimoramento do desenvolvimento urbano, com o objetivo de discorrer sobre algumas opções para melhoria e ampliação de áreas verdes no município de São Paulo, verificando seu impacto na cidade e no alcance de benefícios de forma transversal. A metodologia utilizada foi uma breve revisão de conceitos em evidência para modelagem de cidades desejáveis e de seus pontos de conexão, assim como das definições e experiências relativas a algumas iniciativas verdes que possam ser aplicadas no curto e médio prazo com efetivo impacto positivo nas cidades. A análise tem como norte a situação atual e as perspectivas tangíveis à realidade do município de São Paulo, concluindo-se que atualmente há um esforço no sentido da concretização de políticas sustentáveis, projetos que podem ser otimizados em benefício da qualidade da cidade e da vida de seus cidadãos.

Visitantes florais de Erythrina speciosa Andr. (Leguminosae)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Ant communities (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in an urban ecosystem near the Atlantic Rainforest

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Characterization of the genetic variability among Caesalpinia pulcherrima (L.) Sw. (Fabaceae) plants using RAPD molecular markers

O flamboyanzinho (Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Fabaceae) é muito utilizado como cerca-viva e na arborização de ruas, parques e jardins. de florescimento exuberante, suas flores podem apresentar coloração rosa, laranja ou amarela, conforme a variedade. Como características florais são essenciais para a definição do valor comercial de espécies ornamentais, o objetivo principal do trabalho foi verificar a existência de polimorfismo entre plantas de C. pulcherrima, que produzem flores de diferentes colorações, por marcadores moleculares RAPD. Foram escolhidas aleatoriamente 30 plantas adultas, cultivadas no município de Jaboticabal, Estado de São Paulo, para a retirada de amostras foliares para a extração de DNA. Dentre essas matrizes, 20 possuem flores alaranjadas, oito, flores amarelas, e apenas duas produzem flores de coloração rosa. Dos 140 primers de RAPD avaliados, 94 foram capazes de ampliar fragmentos definidos, gerando 246 bandas, das quais se observou 100% de bandas monomórficas, indicando que nenhum dos primers utilizados detectou polimorfismo entre os tratamentos. Concluiu-se que a técnica para detecção de polimorfismo por marcadores RAPD não foi eficiente, e que existe a necessidade de se testarem marcadores moleculares mais específicos. Além disso, a característica morfológica cor de flor é, possivelmente, controlada por vários genes ou pela combinação deles.

Limites e possibilidades do programa nacional de alimentação escolar enquanto estratégia de promoção da segurança alimentar e nutricional no municipio de Macaíba/RN

This dissertation aims to understand the importance of the National School Feeding as a strategy for ensuring the promotion of food and nutrition security in the municipality of Macaíba / RN, taking into account the implementation of the Law School Feeding, 11,947, 2009. The program was extended to all public basic education, youth and adults, in addition to ensuring that 30% of transfers from FNDE, were intended for the purchase of products from family farms. The survey was conducted with 160 students from public schools and farmers nesting Quilombo dos Palmares II, who produce on their land vegetables, fruits and cereals for their own consumption, for sale in local markets, in addition to providing for PNAE. The reciprocity between neighbors, such as mutual aid and sharing of common goods was noticeable in this group of farmers, since it was necessary to meet weekly deliveries of products to schools. As students, we applied a test of acceptability in two schools located in rural and in urban areas, to learn the opinion of ourselves in relation to school food consumed. It was concluded that to be most effective program in the region, there must be a better match in school menus, so that it can be attractive to students and to ensure greater use of fresh food, the main ingredient of same, practice of nutrition education in schools, to teach students the importance of food to health. In relation to local management, noted the need for adjustments bureaucratic as hiring staff for the departments, in order to be more agile in releasing payments to farmers, in addition to hiring assistants general services for schools, one Since the cooks exert dual role, the cooking while being responsible for cleaning the entire school environment. Government investments in the rural sector would be extremely valuable for farmers, since they need financial resources to purchase inputs, irrigation projects for gardens, availability of land for planting, transportation to facilitate the delivery of its products to schools and technical assistance more frequently

Pedagogia etnomatemática : ações e reflexões em matemática do Ensino Fundamental com um grupo sócio cultural específico

mongst the trends in Mathematics Education, which have as their object a more significant and criticallearning, is the Ethnomathematics. This field of knowledge, still very recent amongst us, besides analyzing an externalist history of the sciences in a search for a relationship between the development of the scientific disciplines and the socio-cultural context, goes beyond this externalism, for it also approaches the intimate relationships betwe_n cognition and culture. In fact, the Ethnomathematics proposes an alternative epistemological approach associated with a wider historiography. It struggles to understand the reality and come to the pedagogical action by means of a cognitive approach with strong cultural basis. But the difficulty of inserting the Ethnomathematics into the educational context is met by resistance from some mathematics educators who seem indifferent to the influence of the culture on the understanding of the mathematics ideas. It was with such concerns in mind that I started this paper that had as object to develop a curricular reorientation pedagogical proposal in mathematics education, at the levei of the 5th grade of the Ensino Fundamental (Elementary School), built from the mathematical knowledge of a vegetable farmers community, 30 km away from the center of Natal/RN, but in accordance with the teaching dimensions of mathematics of the 1 st and 2nd cycles proposed by the Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais - PCN: Numbers and Operations, Space and Form, Units and Measures, and Information Treatment. To achieve that, I developed pedagogical activities from the mathematical concepts of the vegetable farmers of that community, explained in my dissertation research in the period 2000 through 2002. The pedagogical process was developed from August through Oecember 2007 with 24 students of the 5th Grade of the Ensino Fundamental (Elementary School) of the school of that community. The qualitative analysis of the data was conducted taking into account three categories of students: one made up of students that helped their parents in the work with vegetables. Another one by students whose parents and relatives worked with vegetables, though they did not participate directly of this working process and one third category of students that never worked with vegetables, not to mention their parents, but lived adjacent to that community. From the analyses and results of the data gathered by these three distinct categories of students, I concluded that those students that assisted their parents with the daily work with vegetables solved the problem-situations with understanding, and, sometimes, with enriching contributions to the proposed problems. The other categories of students, in spite of the various field researches to the gardens of that community, before and during the pedagogical activities, did not show the same results as those students/vegetable farmers, but showed interest and motivation in ali activities of the pedagogical process in that period

Occurrence of Ancylostoma in dogs, cats and public places from Andradina city, São Paulo state, Brazil

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Vegetative propagation of bauhinia x blakeana, an ornamental sterile tree

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Sistema automatizado para o aproveitamento de água cinza e azul, com controle de PH utilizando lógica fuzzy

Every day, water scarcity becomes a more serious problem and, directly affects global society. Studies are directed in order to raise awareness of the rational use of this natural asset that is essential to our survival. Only 0.007% of the water available in the world have easy access and can be consumed by humans, it can be found in rivers, lakes, etc... To better take advantage of the water used in homes and small businesses, reuse projects are often implemented, resulting in savings for customers of water utilities. The reuse projects involve several areas of engineering, like Environmental, Chemical, Electrical and Computer Engineering. The last two are responsible for the control of the process, which aims to make gray water (soapy water), and clear blue water (rain water), ideal for consumption, or for use in watering gardens, flushing, among others applications. Water has several features that should be taken into consideration when it comes to working its reuse. Some of the features are, turbidity, temperature, electrical conductivity and, pH. In this document there is a proposal to control the pH (potential Hydrogen) through a microcontroller, using the fuzzy logic as strategy of control. The controller was developed in the fuzzy toolbox of Matlab®

Larval isolation and brood care in Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants

The larvae of leaf-cutting ants are maintained within the fungus gardens of their colonies and are fed pieces of fungus by the adult workers. However, little else is known about the nature of the worker-larva interaction in these ecologically important ants. To examine whether workers can gauge the needs of individual larvae, we isolated larvae without adult workers for different lengths of time. We then placed workers with the larvae and recorded the type and frequency of the subsequent behaviours of the workers. Workers scraped the mouthparts of larvae, ingested their faecal fluid, fed them with fungal hyphae, transported them around the fungus garden and, most frequently, licked their bodies. The workers were also observed to 'plant' fungal hyphae on the bodies of larvae. Workers interacted more frequently with larvae that had been isolated without workers than with those that had not, but there was no effect of the length of isolation. The results suggest that the interactions are complex, involving a number of behaviours that probably serve different functions, and that workers are to some extent able to assess the individual needs of larvae.

Growth of populations and the fungus garden of Atta sexdens rubropilosa (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) response to foraged substrates

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Humanização hospitalar, ambiente físico e relações assistenciais :a percepção de arquitetos especialistas

The creation of the Humanization Program of Hospital Care and the increasing number of academic works and journal articles that discuss more humane practices in the health care services express the emphasis given to the theme in Brazil. In these discussions, however, it is not usual to find reference to architecture as a relevant factor in the humanization of hospitals, even though it is known that the physical structure of the building may help the recovering of the patients; elements such as gardens, the use of colors and open spaces may soften the impact caused by the hospital routine on patients. Considering the contribution the architectural project may bring to the humanization of hospitals, the aim of this study was to verify how the architects perceive the hospital humanization process. Besides having searched for subsides in informal interviews with health professionals, in visits to hospitals and in related seminars, the study was based on semi-structured interviews with architects of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, who are specialists in this kind of projects. The content analysis of the interviews showed that physical space and attendance are essential to the humanization process. Those professionals see two humanization tendencies: while private hospitals have the structural physical appearance considered as humanized, public hospitals emphasize the humanization in attendance, fact that illustrates the contradictions in Brazilian health system. The interviewees consider the post-occupancy evaluation of the building as a learning exercise that contributes to new projects, but surprisingly they do not mention the patients opinion as part of it. Two annoying facts have emerged from the interviews, as also seen in preliminary stages of the study: rare are the works that focus on the person-environment relationship, and the definition of humanized hospital environments is still broad and inaccurate. This suggests the need of new studies in order to better understand how the two factors shown in this study attendance and physical space interact towards a true hospital humanization

Microfungal 'Weeds' in the Leafcutter Ant Symbiosis

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)