Chromosomal Evolution in the Brazilian Geckos of the Genus Gymnodactylus (Squamata, Phyllodactylidae) from the Biomes of Cerrado, Caatinga and Atlantic Rain Forest: Evidence of Robertsonian Fusion Events and Supernumerary Chromosomes

Chromosomes of the South American geckos Gymnodactylus amarali and G. geckoides from open and dry areas of the Cerrado and Caatinga biomes in Brazil, respectively, were studied for the first time, after conventional and AgNOR staining, CBG- and RBG-banding, and FISH with telomeric sequences. Comparative analyses between the karyotypes of open areas and the previously studied Atlantic forest species G. darwinii were also performed. The chromosomal polymorphisms detected in populations of G. amarali from the states of Goias and Tocantins is the result of centric fusions (2n = 38, 39 and 40), suggesting a differentiation from a 2n = 40 ancestral karyotype and the presence of supernumerary chromosomes. The CBG- and RBG-banding patterns of the Bs are described. G. geckoides has 40 chromosomes with gradually decreasing sizes, but it is distinct from the 2n = 40 karyotypes of G. amarali and G. darwinii due to occurrence of pericentric inversions or centromere repositioning. NOR location seems to be a marker for Gymnodactylus, as G. amarali and G. geckoides share a medium-sized subtelocentric NOR-bearing pair, while G. darwinii has NORs at the secondary constriction of the long arm of pair 1. The comparative analyses indicate a non-random nature of the Robertsonian rearrangements in the genus Gymnodactylus. Copyright (C) 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel

Phylogeographical, ecological and biological patterns shown by nuclear (ssrRNA and gGAPDH) and mitochondrial (Cyt b) genes of trypanosomes of the subgenus Schizotrypanum parasitic in Brazilian bats

The genetic diversity and phylogeographical patterns of Trypanosoma species that infect Brazilian bats were evaluated by examining 1043 bats from 63 species of seven families captured in Amazonia, the Pantanal, Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest biomes of Brazil. The prevalence of trypanosonne-infected bats, as estimated by haemoculture, was 12.9%, resulting in 77 Cultures of isolates, most morphologically identified as Trypanosoma cf. cruzi, classified by barcoding using partial sequences from ssrRNA gene into the subgenus Schizotrypanum and identified as T. cruzi (15), T cruzi marinkellei (37) or T. cf. dionisii (25). Phylogenetic analyses using nuclear ssrRNA, glycosomal glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (gGAPDH) and mitochondrial cytochrome b (Cyt b) gene sequences generated three clades, which clustered together forming the subgenus Schizotrypanum. In addition to vector association, bat trypanosomes were related by the evolutionary history, ecology and phylogeography of the bats. Tryponosoma cf. dionisii trypanosomes (32.4%) infected 12 species from four bat families captured in all biomes, from North to South Brazil, and clustered with T. dionisii from Europe despite being separated by some genetic distance. Trypanosoma cruzi marinkellei (49.3%) was restricted to phyllostomid bats from Amazonia to the Pantanal (North to Central). Trypanosoma cruzi (18.2%) was found mainly in vespertilionid and phyllostomid bats from the Pantanal/Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest (Central to Southeast), with a few isolates from Amazonia. (C) 2009 Australian Society for Parasitology Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Phylogenetic Lineage of Closely Related Trypanosomes (Trypanosomatidae, Kinetoplastida) of Anurans and Sand Flies (Psychodidae, Diptera) Sharing the Same Ecotopes in Brazilian Amazonia

Analysis of the phylogenetic relationships among trypanosomes from vertebrates and invertebrates disclosed a new lineage of trypanosomes circulating among anurans and sand flies that share the same ecotopes in Brazilian Amazonia. This assemblage of closely related trypanosomes was determined by comparing whole SSU rDNA sequences of anuran trypanosomes from the Brazilian biomes of Amazonia, the Pantanal, and the Atlantic Forest and from Europe, North America, and Africa, and from trypanosomes of sand flies from Amazonia. Phylogenetic trees based on maximum likelihood and parsimony corroborated the positioning of all new anuran trypanosomes in the aquatic clade but did not support the monophyly of anuran trypanosomes. However, all analyses always supported four major clades (An01-04) of anuran trypanosomes. Clade An04 is composed of trypanosomes from exotic anurans. Isolates in clades An01 and An02 were from Brazilian frogs and toads captured in the three biomes studied, Amazonia, the Pantanal and the Atlantic Forest. Clade An01 contains mostly isolates from Hylidae whereas clade An02 comprises mostly isolates from Bufonidae; and clade An03 contains trypanosomes from sand flies and anurans of Bufonidae, Leptodactylidae, and Leiuperidae exclusively from Amazonia. To our knowledge, this is the first study describing morphological and growth features, and molecular phylogenetic affiliation of trypanosomes from anurans and phlebotomines, incriminating these flies as invertebrate hosts and probably also as important vectors of Amazonian terrestrial anuran trypanosomes.

Habitat use and home range of brown-nosed coati, Nasua nasua (Carnivora: Procyonidae) in the Brazilian Cerrado biome

The brown-nosed coati (Nasua nasua) is a carnivorous species found in all the Brazilian biomes, some of which are endangered areas. The aim of this work was to determine the habitat use and selection, home range and core area of N. nasua in the Cerrado biome, central region of Tocantins, Brazil. The study was carried out in an area of approximately 20 000ha from May 2000 to July 2002. A total of seven box traps were placed in the area for 13 months, three of 11 captured animals were followed and monitored by radio-tracking during 13 months. The monitoring was conducted once a day, three times a week using a car and walking through the study area (radio-tracking and visual contact). The results demonstrate that these three males used more frequently the gallery forest formation, followed by cerrado and wetlands. The use of gallery forest by these animals indicated an habitat selection (Proportion test, z=12.98, p< 0.01). Besides, adult males used the gallery forest more frequently (Fisher's exact test, p<0.01) and wetlands less frequently (Fisher's exact test, p<0.01) than juvenile males, without significant differences between animal ages for cerrado percentage of habitat use. Besides, results also showed a gallery forest selection by adult (Proportion test z= 13.62, p<0.01) and juvenile (Proportion test z=2.68, p<0.01) males, and a wetland selection by the juvenile male (Proportion test z=3.90, p<0.01). The home ranges varied from 2.20 to 7.55km2 for the Minimum Convex Polygon 100% (MCP 100%) and from 4.38 to 13.32km2 for the Harmonic Mean 95% (HM 95%). The smallest home range overlap occurred between the adult males (Nm1 and Nm3), and the greatest between the juvenile Njm2 and the adult Nm1. The average of the core area (HM 75%) for the three monitored animals represented 21.29% of the home range calculated with HM 95%. No overlap between core areas was observed for adult males, but, it was an overlap between the core area of the juvenile male and its band with that of the two adult males. The present study provides new data on core area size and frequency habitat use by adult and juvenile males of N. nasua in the Brazilian Cerrado, that may support conservation efforts. Rev. Biol. Trop. 58 (3): 1069-1077. Epub 2010 September 01.

Natural products from Brazilian biodiversity as a source of new models for medicinal chemistry

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

Soluções para a construção de habitação em adobe a custos controlados

Dados recentes mostram que o desmatamento da caatinga, um dos principais biomas brasileiros, está atingindo níveis alarmantes, principalmente devido a sua vulnerabilidade e forte tendência à desertificação. Entre os dez municípios brasileiros que mais desmataram a caatinga, segundo o Ministério do Meio Ambiente, quatro se encontram no Ceará. Estudos mostram que entre as principais causas do desmatamento está o uso da mata nativa para lenha e carvão, sobretudo para a queima de tijolos em olarias clandestinas. Procurando estudar a questão da aplicabilidade de construções sustentáveis no Nordeste Brasileiro, o presente trabalho faz um levantamento detalhado sobre construções em terra crua (adobe) na região, em especial no Estado que mais contribuiu com o desmatamento. Em assim sendo, realizou-se uma extensa pesquisa aos acervos públicos e oito expedições rodoviárias, entre 2009 e 2011, e totalizando cerca de 7.000 km rodados, às regiões norte e nordeste do Estado do Ceará. Foram coletadas amostras de terra e de adobe para ensaios nos laboratórios da Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC) e feita ampla documentação fotográfica com aplicação de questionários em 14localidades. Foram levantados dados de vários aspectos relevantes para a pesquisa, quais sejam: composição da terra, granulometria, processos de secagem do adobe, resistência mecânica à compressão, além de aspectos ligados ao detalhamento do revestimento, traço de rebocos e detalhes de fundação. A análise dos dados coletados permitiu compreender a construção em adobe na região, no seu contexto cultural. Esta pesquisa pode ajudar na manutenção de um sistema construtivo ambiental, cultural e economicamente sustentável, através da busca por um caminho de reavaliação das possibilidades de adaptações técnicas à casa típica do semiárido cearense.

Metagenômica comparativa de solo de regiões de mata atlântica e caatinga do estado do Rio Grande do Norte - Brasil

The microorganisms play very important roles in maintaining ecosystems, which explains the enormous interest in understanding the relationship between these organisms as well as between them and the environment. It is estimated that the total number of prokaryotic cells on Earth is between 4 and 6 x 1030, constituting an enormous biological and genetic pool to be explored. Although currently only 1% of all this wealth can be cultivated by standard laboratory techniques, metagenomic tools allow access to the genomic potential of environmental samples in a independent culture manner, and in combination with third generation sequencing technologies, the samples coverage become even greater. Soils, in particular, are the major reservoirs of this diversity, and many important environments around us, as the Brazilian biomes Caatinga and Atlantic Forest, are poorly studied. Thus, the genetic material from environmental soil samples of Caatinga and Atlantic Forest biomes were extracted by direct techniques, pyrosequenced, and the sequences generated were analyzed by bioinformatics programs (MEGAN MG-RAST and WEBCarma). Taxonomic comparative profiles of the samples showed that the phyla Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria and Planctomycetes were the most representative. In addition, fungi of the phylum Ascomycota were identified predominantly in the soil sample from the Atlantic Forest. Metabolic profiles showed that despite the existence of environmental differences, sequences from both samples were similarly placed in the various functional subsystems, indicating no specific habitat functions. This work, a pioneer in taxonomic and metabolic comparative analysis of soil samples from Brazilian biomes, contributes to the knowledge of these complex environmental systems, so far little explored

Invasive Africanized honeybees change the structure of native pollination networks in Brazil

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Mamíferos não voadores do Parque Estadual Carlos Botelho, Continuum florestal do Paranapiacaba

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

Biodiversidade: fonte potencial para a descoberta de fármacos

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

Herpetofauna do Parque Estadual Carlos Botelho, São Paulo, Brasil

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

Climatic variables and altitude as predictors of anuran species richness and number of reproductive modes in Brazil

Because anuran species are highly dependent on environmental variables, we hypothesized that anuran species richness and the number of reproductive modes from different Brazilian localities vary according to climatic and altitudinal variables. Published data were compiled from 36 Brazilian localities and climatic and altitudinal data were extracted from an available database. A partial redundancy analysis (pRDA) showed that 23.5% of the data set's variation was explained by climatic and altitudinal data, while the remaining 76.5% remained unexplained. This analysis suggests that other factors not analysed herein may also be important for predicting anuran species richness and the number of reproductive modes in Brazil. Altitude and total annual rainfall were positively correlated with anuran species richness and the number of reproductive modes, and total annual rainfall was strongly associated with these two biotic variables in the triplot of pRDA. The positive association of total annual rainfall and the negative association of the concentration of annual rainfall were already expected based on physiological and reproductive requirements of anurans. On the other hand, temperature was not associated with richness or the number of reproductive modes. Copyright © 2010 Cambridge University Press.

Phenotypic plasticity of composite beef cattle performance using reaction norms model with unknown covariate

The objective of the present study was to determine the presence of genotype by environment interaction (G × E) and to characterize the phenotypic plasticity of birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW), postweaning weight gain (PWG) and yearling scrotal circumference (SC) in composite beef cattle using the reaction norms model with unknown covariate. The animals were born between 1995 and 2008 on 33 farms located throughout all Brazilian biomes between latitude -7 and -31, longitude -40 and -63. The contemporary group was chosen as the environmental descriptor, that is, the environmental covariate of the reaction norms. In general, higher estimates of direct heritability were observed in extreme favorable environments. The mean of direct heritability across the environmental gradient ranged from 0.05 to 0.51, 0.09 to 0.43, 0.01 to 0.43 and from 0.12 to 0.26 for BW, WW, PWG and SC, respectively. The variation in direct heritability observed indicates a different response to selection according to the environment in which the animals of the population are evaluated. The correlation between the level and slope of the reaction norm for BW and PWG was high, indicating that animals with higher average breeding values responded better to improvement in environmental conditions, a fact characterizing a scale of G × E. Low correlation between the intercept and slope was obtained for WW and SC, implying re-ranking of animals in different environments. Genetic variation exists in the sensitivity of animals to the environment, a fact that permits the selection of more plastic or robust genotypes in the population studied. Thus, the G × E is an important factor that should be considered in the genetic evaluation of the present population of composite beef cattle. © The Animal Consortium 2012.

Avaliação do potencial biocatalítico de fungos endófitos de espécies vegetais do Cerrado

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Morphological and molecular characterization and phylogenetic relationships of a new species of trypanosome in Tapirus terrestris (lowland tapir), Trypanosoma terrestris sp nov., from Atlantic Rainforest of southeastern Brazil

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