Poliana Mendes

O conhecimento sobre morcegos (Chiroptera: Mammalia) do estado do Espírito Santo, sudeste do Brasil

A Ordem Chiroptera apresenta importância relevante na dinâmica dos ecossistemas, sendo a ordem de mamiferos com maior diversidade de habitos de vida. Dentre os estados da regiao Sudeste do Brasil, o Espirito Santo e um dos mais carentes em relacao ao conhecimento de morcegos. Este estudo sintetizou o estado do conhecimento sobre quiropteros gerado no Espirito Santo. Para isso, foram catalogados os morcegos depositados no Museu de Biologia Prof. Mello Leitao (MBML), no Laboratorio de Estudos de Quiropteros da Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo (LABEQ), Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ), Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) e University of Michigan Museum Zoology (UMMZ). Alem disso, foi realizada uma busca por artigos publicados sobre morcegos do Espirito Santo. Foram revistos 49 artigos cientificos, realizadas tres teses de mestrado e 11 monografias. Considerando as colecoes amostradas e artigos publicados totalizam-se 63 especies de morcegos para o estado, provenientes de 37 dos 78 municipios do Espirito Santo. A maior riqueza de especies de morcegos foi encontrada nos municipios de Linhares e Santa Teresa, o que e provavelmente reflexo da maior parte dos especimes depositados nos museus tambem serem desses municipios. O Espirito Santo apresenta um grande potencial para se encontrar novas ocorrencias de especies, enfatizando a importância da realizacao de futuros estudos sobre morcegos no estado.

Mining code changes undermine biodiversity conservation in Brazil

Protected areas (PAs) are vital for the conservation of Brazils biodiversity (Barber et al. 2014 ). However, they are at risk of a downgrade in legal status due to economic pressures on natural resources (Bernard et al. 2014 ; De Marques & Perez 2014 ; Pack et al. 2016 ). Mining is one of the most urgent environmental threats in Brazil (Ferreira et al. 2014 ; El Bizri et al. 2016 ), with plans in place for a 10-fold increase in the number of mining projects in c. 8 years. If all were developed, the Brazilian territory occupied by mining would increase 23-fold in the near future. Currently, 12 697 projects covering 98 × 10 5 ha are planned within PAs. Licensing and exploitation of 53% of this land will depend on the approval of three bills that intend to authorize mining in areas where it was formerly forbidden. Here, we analyse the potential consequences of the approval of these new policies for conservation.

Vulnerability of Cerrado threatened mammals: an integrative landscape and climate modeling approach

Species vulnerability is defined based on their exposition, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to a given impact. Considering limitations to estimate the sensitivity component, we developed a framework integrating the knowledge on ecological niche models and extinction thresholds, generating species sensitivity scenarios at the landscape scale. Our aim was to assess species and landscape vulnerability for threatened mammal species from the Brazilian Cerrado by considering seven types of human-impacts and climatic suitability. We assumed that climatic-suitable landscapes with less than 50% of remaining natural vegetation are not suitable for species, while in landscapes with 50–60% of remaining natural vegetation, populations are highly vulnerable. We found a spatial match between climatic-suitable areas and highly-impacted landscape (< 50% of remaining vegetation), specifically in southern Cerrado. We attribute this result to two main reasons: (1) similar characteristics affecting both suitability for species and human activities; and (2) highly impacted landscapes are likely to shelter threatened species. Vulnerable cells, with 50–60% of remaining vegetation, were distributed throughout Cerrado, meaning that there is no spatial bias within their distribution. Range-restricted species exhibited higher variability in vulnerability compared to widely-distributed species, what could be explained by human occupation being spatially clumped. Agriculture is the major impact affecting highly-impacted landscapes (< 50% of remaining vegetation), transport infra-structure has higher impact on vulnerable landscapes. We believe that our approach can be easily applied for assessing species and landscape vulnerability in many ecological domains by adapting extinction thresholds according to the focus taxon.

Family Planning: Does Variation in Reproductive Strategies Affect Vulnerability to Extinction in the Greater Spear-Nosed Bat Phyllostomus Hastatus?

Different reproductive strategies among populations might affect population growth rates, and a populations vulnerability to threats. Population viability analysis may help guide population management and the identification of populations more prone to decline, allowing a preventive approach to avoid population declines and extinctions. The objective of the present study was to evaluate if differences in reproductive strategy translate into differential intrinsic vulnerability among different populations of Phyllostomus hastatus. We used the software VORTEX to model the dynamics and viability of P. hastatus populations under different reproductive scenarios. We modeled a total of 12 scenarios evaluating variations in reproductive characteristics of the species (monoestry vs polyestry, harem size, and infant mortality rate). Phyllostomus hastatus populations were viable under most scenarios, except with scenarios incorporating monoestry and high pup mortality. Our results demonstrate that both reproductive strategies (monoestry and polyestry) found in P. hastatus result in viable and stable populations under natural conditions. However, polyestrous populations have higher growth rates, making them more resilient to natural and/or anthropogenic disturbances. A significant portion of the more resilient populations in South America overlap the Amazon Forest, a continuous and preserved habitat under low human pressure, which bodes well for the long-term persistence of these populations. On the other hand, the populations of the species that evolved the monoestrous reproductive strategy are located in Mesoamerica, a Biodiversity Hotspot that is under severe human impacts, particularly from habitat loss. Conservation biologists and managers must take into account intra-specific demographic differences of species when planning for their long-term persistence.