Effects of habitat fragmentation on the spider community (Arachnida: Araneae) in three Atlantic forest remnants in southeastern Brazil.

This work was developed in three remnants of Atlantic forest in southeastern Brazil. We aimed to assess edge effects in the spider community in a well conserved fragment and to study the variation of spider diversity among fragments of different sizes. The spider families with the highest richness were Theridiidae (38 sp), Araneidae (31 sp) and Salticidae (25 sp). The control area showed the highest diversity (D=0.98) and exclusive species (58.9%). We concluded that spider richness is higher in the large and best preserved fragment. In addition, we found that species richness and abundance increased towards the interior.

Testing the ecomorphological hypothesis in a headwater riffles fish assemblage of the rio São Francisco, southeastern Brazil

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

Anura, Estacao Ecologica de Jatai, São Paulo State, southeastern Brazil.

The Estacao Ecologica de Jata comprises one of the largest mesophytic semideciduous forest and savanna remnants in the state of São Paulo. However, anuran surveys on this site have not been registered in the literature. As result of an exploratory survey conducted in water bodies in the mesophytic semideciduous forest and surroundings in December 2006, we recorded 21 anuran species belonging to five families and 10 genera. These findings contribute to the knowledge of the anuran fauna associated to the mesophytic semideciduous forest of São Paulo state, Brazil.

Topological signatures in CMB temperature anisotropy maps

We propose an alternative formalism to simulate cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature maps in Lambda CDM universes with nontrivial spatial topologies. This formalism avoids the need to explicitly compute the eigenmodes of the Laplacian operator in the spatial sections. Instead, the covariance matrix of the coefficients of the spherical harmonic decomposition of the temperature anisotropies is expressed in terms of the elements of the covering group of the space. We obtain a decomposition of the correlation matrix that isolates the topological contribution to the CMB temperature anisotropies out of the simply connected contribution. A further decomposition of the topological signature of the correlation matrix for an arbitrary topology allows us to compute it in terms of correlation matrices corresponding to simpler topologies, for which closed quadrature formulas might be derived. We also use this decomposition to show that CMB temperature maps of (not too large) multiply connected universes must show patterns of alignment, and propose a method to look for these patterns, thus opening the door to the development of new methods for detecting the topology of our Universe even when the injectivity radius of space is slightly larger than the radius of the last scattering surface. We illustrate all these features with the simplest examples, those of flat homogeneous manifolds, i.e., tori, with special attention given to the cylinder, i.e., T-1 topology.

Finding critical exponents for two-dimensional Hamiltonian maps

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Radioactivity distribution in some Permian sediments from the Irati and Corumbatal formations of the Parana basin, southeastern Brazil

in the city of Limeira, southeastern Brazil, an important exposure of Permian sediments of the Parana basin was revealed by an open pit mine that exploits limestone for production of soil correction compounds and raw materials for the ceramic industry. The radioactivity of these sediments was investigated in some detail and the results provided a general view of the vertical distributions of uranium, thorium and potassium concentrations and of the element ratios U/K, U/Th and Th/K. In general, the concentrations of the main natural radioactive elements are low, with uranium being enriched in some limestone and shale levels. In addition the results showed that the U-238 series is in radioactive disequilibrium in many of the analyzed samples. Although the origin of the observed disequilibrium has not been investigated, the results suggest that it is due to weathering processes and water interaction with the rock matrix. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mapping soil pollution by spatial analysis and fuzzy classification

Spatial analysis and fuzzy classification techniques were used to estimate the spatial distributions of heavy metals in soil. The work was applied to soils in a coastal region that is characterized by intense urban occupation and large numbers of different industries. Concentrations of heavy metals were determined using geostatistical techniques and classes of risk were defined using fuzzy classification. The resulting prediction mappings identify the locations of high concentrations of Pb, Zn, Ni, and Cu in topsoils of the study area. The maps show that areas of high pollution of Ni and Cu are located at the northeast, where there is a predominance of industrial and agricultural activities; Pb and Zn also occur in high concentrations in the northeast, but the maps also show significant concentrations of Pb and Zn in other areas, mainly in the central and southeastern parts, where there are urban leisure activities and trade centers. Maps were also prepared showing levels of pollution risk. These maps show that (1) Cu presents a large pollution risk in the north-northwest, midwest, and southeast sectors, (2) Pb represents a moderate risk in most areas, (3) Zn generally exhibits low risk, and (4) Ni represents either low risk or no risk in the studied area. This study shows that combining geostatistics with fuzzy theory can provide results that offer insight into risk assessment for environmental pollution.

Coincidence points of fiber maps on S-n-bundles

In this note we study coincidence of pairs of fiber-preserving maps f, g : E-1 -> E-2 where E-1, E-2 are S-n-bundles over a space B. We will show that for each homotopy class vertical bar f vertical bar of fiber-preserving maps over B, there is only one homotopy class vertical bar g vertical bar such that the pair (f, g), where vertical bar g vertical bar = vertical bar tau circle f vertical bar can be deformed to a coincidence free pair. Here tau : E-2 -> E-2 is a fiber-preserving map which is fixed point free. In the case where the base is S-1 we classify the bundles, the homotopy classes of maps over S-1 and the pairs which can be deformed to coincidence free. At the end we discuss the self-coincidence problem. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abelianized obstruction for fixed points of fiber-preserving maps of surface bundles

Let f: M -> M be a fiber-preserving map where S -> M -> B is a bundle and S is a closed surface. We study the abelianized obstruction, which is a cohomology class in dimension 2, to deform f to a fixed point free map by a fiber-preserving homotopy. The vanishing of this obstruction is only a necessary condition in order to have such deformation, but in some cases it is sufficient. We describe this obstruction and we prove that the vanishing of this class is equivalent to the existence of solution of a system of equations over a certain group ring with coefficients given by Fox derivatives.

Development of environmental and natural vulnerability maps for Brazilian coastal at Sao Sebastiao in São Paulo State

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Contribution of forest species to the floristic composition of a forested savanna in southeastern Brazil

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Pollination and dispersal systems in a Cerrado remnant (Brazilian Savanna) in Southeastern Brazil

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Seasonal diet shifts of seven fish species in an Atlantic rainforest stream in Southeastern Brazil

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

Ichthyofauna of two streams (silted and reference) in the Upper Paraná river basin, Southeastern Brazil

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

Stock assessment and fishery management of the pink shrimp Farfantepenaeus brasiliensis Latreille, 1970 and F. paulensis Pérez-Farfante, 1967 in Southeastern Brazil (23° to 28° S)

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