Saimiri are neotropical primates with seasonal reproduction, males develop a seasonal fattening condition that has been suggested as a pre‐copulatory sexual selection strategy. Furthermore, females ...mate with multiple males in the same season. This could also favor the evolution of a postcopulatory sexual strategy by sperm competition. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that there is a relationship between the fatted condition and advantageous seminal characteristics in Saimiri collinsi and evaluated its implications for sperm competition. Adult males (N = 10), aged 5–15 years, housed in mixed or only‐male groups, were analyzed from June, 2015 to July, 2016. Measurements of weight, axilla, and arm skinfold, and testicular volume were taken monthly, and semen was collected by electroejaculation. A fattening index was developed to quantify and identify fatted males, biometrics, and seminal parameters were compared between the non‐fatted and fatted conditions. The fatted males present a larger testicular volume. This is related to the increase in spermatogenic activity necessary to sustain a high ejaculation frequency during the mating season. An increase in seminal volume and in frequency of semen coagulation were detected in fatted males, advantages related to sperm protection in the female reproductive tract. Age and social context were not significant sources of variation for both morphological and seminal traits. A decrease in response from the fatted males in obtaining semen and an increase in the frequency of azoospermic ejaculates were observed. These unexpected results may be due to intense reproductive activities in a short period. The fattening phenomenon has many implications in the sexual selection of squirrel monkeys, and they are still not entirely unveiled. Our results corroborate the idea that, in S. collinsi, the fatted male condition is related to sexual selection, and we found evidence suggesting it may be also expressed by a post‐copulatory component, sperm competition.
Squirrel monkey (Saimiri collinsi) presents seasonal fattening.
Highlights
The fatted males (Saimiri collinsi) have important advantages in the production and survival of sperm, with increased fertilization probability.
The fatted male presents a testicular and seminal volume greater than that of non‐fatted males, which is a strong indicator that in fatted males where sperm competition is intense, characteristics that increase the success of fertilization are positively selected.
During the fattening period in S. collinsi, the more frequent appearance of coagulation degrees II and III can reveal an adaptation that provides an advantage to gametes, increasing their chance of fertilization in periods when sperm competition increases.
Globally, community-based initiatives are effective in protecting ecosystems and the species within them. In this paper, we analyze the emergence and large-scale expansion of a community-based ...environmental protection system (the Voluntary Environmental Agents Program – VEA Program) in the Brazilian Amazon and identify factors that have determined its success since its inception, 25 years ago. Collective actions to protect the environment in the region have been undertaken by local people for at least 40 years, before their legal regulation in 2001 by the federal government of Brazil, and by the Amazonas state in 2007. The system is based on territorial surveillance and monitoring, and on guidelines for the better use of the territory and its natural resources. Between 1995 and 2020, the VEA Program expanded into the two protected areas where it was first implemented reaching approximately 9 thousand km2 of area protected by the system. The number of people participating also grew in this period by around 2050%, as did the participation of women, which grew by 5600%. The system was replicated in 37 protected areas in central Amazonia, and currently covers almost 200 thousand km2 of Amazon rainforest. From our analyses we unveil four main factors that may have allowed the VEA Program to expand and flourish: (a) the communities' previous demand for an effective control system, (b) its legal formalization and regulation, (c) the support from external institutions, and (d) the consolidation of community-based management programs to fund actions. These factors shall be further investigated as to confirm their critical role in the success of the VEA Program. We demonstrate that this community-based environmental protection system has established itself as a legitimate form of social control, and as a mechanism of socio-environmental governance in the areas in which it operates. By allowing more effective protection of territories, it generates consensus amongst users for the adequate management of natural resources, especially in contexts where government's actions are absent or inefficient. We claim that this system can be replicated in various parts of the world.
•Environmental protection carried out by local communities in Brazilian Amazonia started at least 40 years ago.•Legal regulation of these actions legitimated local demands and encouraged better gender and ethnic equity.•This system (Voluntary Environmental Agents Program) was replicated in 37 protected areas and covers almost 200,000 km2 of rainforest.•This system generates conformity for the management natural resources in contexts where official action is inefficient.•We claim that this system can be replicated in various parts of the world.
The reproductive parameters are among the most important life history aspects of fishes influenced by environmental variation. During recent years, the main life history strategies of Amazonian fish ...species were defined mostly by a set of reproductive parameters. In the present work, we sought to describe important life history parameters, in particular on reproductive characteristics of
Apistogramma agassizii
and
Apistogramma bitaeniata
, found in floodplain lakes of the Brazilian Amazonia. The species presented a positive sexual dimorphism, and males were significantly bigger than females. For both sexes, four developmental phase of gonad maturation were detected, and based on those it was possible to identify mature, reproductive specimens throughout the entire period of the study. From the ovaries of mature females, fecundity and spawning type were determined. Low fecundity, short spawning periods, possibly separated only by few months, and total spawning are all good indications that
A. agassizii
and
A. bitaeniata
evolved an opportunistic strategy in their life history.
•FFAI enables assessment of human disturbance at a local scale in floodplain forest.•At a local level, FFAI is sensitive to different types of disturbance.•At a local level, FFAI assesses the ...strength of each type of impact.•A useful tool for decision makers in choosing priority areas for intervention.
The floodplain forests in the Amazon basin suffer from the continued exploitation of natural resources and, after being disturbed, show slow and sometimes irreversible recovery. Our goal was to create an index that could be used to assess the relative level of human disturbance in floodplain forests and determine the relative importance of different types of disturbance on a given site and between sites. The index proposed here (Flooded Forest Anthropization Index – FFAI) assesses human disturbance on a local scale and is composed by 15 indicators divided into three groups that represent different levels of impact: (1) simplification of ecosystems and reduction of local diversity; (2) ecosystem replacement/destruction; (3) disturbances with the potential to impact the ecosystem in both ways. The FFAI proved to be robust and revealed a wide range of values in the evaluated landscapes. The sites classified a priori as more anthropogenic showed significantly higher FFAI values than the less anthropogenic ones (0.14±0.05 and 0.08±0.02, respectively, F=18.9, df=19, p<0.0001). The FFAI enabled a comprehensive assessment of human disturbance on a local scale in Amazonian floodplain forests and can be a useful tool for decision makers in choosing priority areas for interventions and for targeting the type of intervention that must be carried out. Although specific to floodplains, the index can be adjusted to be used in other ecosystems.
The present study reviews the records of occurrences of fish species found in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve (MSDR). The reserve is located in a large section of the middle Solimões ...River basin, in its interflow with Japurá River. For the elaboration of the list of fish species occurring in Mamirauá Reserve, we used a database of different studies on fish communities carried out in the area over the last three decades, in addition to the material deposited in the ichthyological collections of three scientific institutions, the National Institute for Amazon Research - INPA, the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Institute - IDSM and the Science and Technology Museum of the Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul - PUCRS. The ichthyofauna of the MSDR is composed of 541 species, encompassing 45 families and 15 orders. These correspond to 20% of all valid species known for the entire Amazonia so far. As observed in other studies in the Neotropical Region, the more represented orders were Siluriformes (209 species) and Characiformes (185 species), followed by the Gymnotiformes (78 species). The results presented here demonstrate a considerable increase (86%) in the knowledge about the fish diversity found in Mamirauá Reserve, in relation to its first list of fish species, published in the 90's. This increase reflects not only the growth in number of studies on fish diversity in the area, with new surveys, but also the continuous taxonomic work on the collections, and descriptions of twenty-eight new species, with one hundred and ten type series. Further surveys are expected to take place in the Northwestern, more isolated areas of the Reserve, and will allow the identification of new occurrences, and may even unveil new fish species yet to be described to Science..
Resumo: Este estudo apresenta uma revisão dos registros de ocorrências das espécies de peixes encontradas na Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá (RDSM), ampla área localizada na bacia do Médio Solimões, em seu interflúvio com o Rio Japurá. Para a elaboração da lista de peixes que ocorrem na Reserva Mamirauá foram utilizados os bancos de dados de diferentes estudos sobre comunidades de peixes realizados na área ao longo das últimas décadas, além de informações referentes ao material tombado nas coleções ictiológicas de três instituições científicas, o Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia- INPA,o Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá - IDSM e o Museu de Ciências e Tecnologia da Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul - PUCRS. A ictiofauna da RDSM é composta por 541 espécies, incluindo 45 famílias e 15 ordens. Estes valores correspondem a cerca de 20% de todas espécies válidas conhecidas para toda a Amazônia até o momento. Assim como em outros estudos na região Neotropical as ordens que apresentaram as maiores riquezas foram siluriformes (209 espécies) e Characiformes (185 espécies), seguidas de Gymnotiformes (78 espécies). Os resultados apresentados neste trabalho demonstram um aumento considerável (86%) no conhecimento sobre a diversidade de peixes encontrados na Reserva Mamirauá, em relação à primeira lista de peixes da RDSM, publicada na década de 1990. Este aumento reflete não apenas o crescimento no número de estudos sobre a diversidade de peixes na área, com a ocorrência de novos levantamentos, como também a intensificação dos trabalhos taxonômicos de classificação e descrição de vinte oito novas espécies com cento e dez séries tipos. Novos levantamentos deverão ocorrer nas áreas mais isoladas da Reserva, na sua porção noroeste. Estas atividades permitirão a identificação de novas ocorrências, e podem até revelar espécies novas a serem descritas..
resumo O planeta passa por diferentes crises que se entrelaçam na dimensão ambiental, econômica, de saúde, e são agravadas pela crise de governança. Mas tantas crises simultâneas também oferecem à ...humanidade a rara oportunidade de redirecionar seus esforços de desenvolvimento para um modelo que seja mais sustentável, com menor utilização de combustíveis fósseis e uma utilização menos predatória dos recursos naturais. Os vírus são um componente da biodiversidade e as entidades biológicas mais abundantes da Terra. Países megadiversos como o Brasil, com altos graus de vulnerabilidade social e degradação ambiental, possuem grande probabilidade de que novos patógenos que vivem em espécies silvestres pulem para os hospedeiros humanos. Isso depende, em grande parte dos cenários de transmissão, que são altamente favoráveis nos “wet markets” dos países asiáticos, e muito mais raros nos mercados populares do Brasil, quer seja pelas nossas tradições no consumo de carne de caça quer seja pela baixa densidade populacional, quando comparada a de países asiáticos. No Brasil o contato com vírus novos e desconhecidos se dá muito mais com a contínua aceleração da destruição de nossos biomas, a redução, fragmentação e perda de hábitats estamos constantemente ampliando o contato do homem com novos vírus. Considerando a nefasta sinergia entre as mudanças climáticas globais e as taxas de extinção de espécies, o Homo sapiens é a única espécie no planeta responsável pelas pandemias observadas no último século e a pela atual pandemia da Covid 19. Se por um lado a biodiversidade é a origem dos vírus, sem sombra de dúvidas, ela é também uma grande farmácia, e pode ser uma grande fonte de novos antitrombóticos, antimicrobianos e antivirais. Atualmente a biodiversidade é a origem de uma gama grande de moléculas utilizadas em antivirais utilizados nos tratamentos de HIV, herpes, hepatite B e C e influenza A e B. Atualmente há cerca 40 compostos internacionalmente aprovados, mas eles estão envolvidos na terapêutica de apenas 10 viroses. A situação é ainda mais crítica no caso de doenças negligenciadas, onde, por falta de interesse econômico, não há sequer linhas de pesquisa continuadas. Apesar de todas as perdas e instabilidades experimentadas atualmente, é possível perceber que o momento também permite aprender com a Covid-19, reconhecendo particularmente a ligação existente entre biodiversidade, os serviços ecossistêmicos e saúde humana, para reunirmos esforços e buscarmos evitar o surgimento de novas pandemias tão ou mais devastadoras que a atual.
abstract The planet is going through different, intertwined crises in the environmental, economic, and health dimensions, and are aggravated by a crisis in governance. But so many simultaneous crises also offer humanity the rare opportunity to redirect its development efforts toward a more sustainable model that uses less fossil fuels and makes less predatory use of natural resources. Viruses are a component of biodiversity and the most abundant biological entities on Earth. In megadiverse countries like Brazil, with high degrees of social vulnerability and environmental degradation, there is a high probability that new pathogens living in wild species will jump to human hosts. This is largely dependent on transmission scenarios, which are highly favorable in the wet markets of Asian countries, and much less so in the popular markets of Brazil, either because of our traditions in game meat consumption or because of our low population density when compared to Asian countries. In Brazil, expanding contact with new and unknown viruses is much more due to the continuous acceleration of the destruction of our biomes, and to the reduction, fragmentation and loss of habitats.. With regard to the harmful synergy between global climate change and species extinction rates, Homo sapiens has been the only species on the planet responsible for the pandemics of the last century and for the current Covid-19 pandemics. If, on one hand, biodiversity is the origin of viruses, undoubtedly it is also a great pharmacy and can be the source of new antimicrobials and antivirals. Nowadays, biodiversity is the origin of a great range of molecules for antivirals used in the treatment of HIV, herpes, hepatitis B and C, and influenza A and B. Currently, there are about 40 internationally approved compounds, but they are involved in the therapy of only 10 viruses. The situation is even more critical in the case of neglected diseases, where, due to lack of economic interest, there are not even continuous lines of research. Despite all the losses and instabilities experienced today, it is possible to see that the moment also allows us to learn from Covid-19, particularly in recognizing the existing link between biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human health.
Integration between ecology and biogeography provides insights into how niche specialization affects the geographical distribution of species. Given that rivers are not effective barriers to ...dispersal in three parapatric species of squirrel monkeys (
Saimiri vanzolinii
,
S. cassiquiarensis
and
S. macrodon
) inhabiting floodplain forests of Central Amazonia, we tested whether forest structure and tree diversity may explain species differences in niche specialization and spatial segregation. We sampled 6617 trees of 326 species in three habitats (high várzea, low várzea and chavascal) used by three
Saimiri
species, and estimated tree species richness in each of them. For each tree, we measured variables known to influence habitat use in primates, such as crown area and presence of lianas, epiphytes and hemi-epiphytes. We used ANOVA to compare these variables and performed multivariate analyses (NMDS, ANOSIM and SIMPER) to evaluate dissimilarities in forest structure among each habitat inhabited by the three
Saimiri
species. We identified differences in the tree species richness, crown area and presence of lianas, epiphytes and hemi-epiphytes between the three habitats for all
Saimiri
species. NMDS demonstrated that areas of high and low várzeas occupied by
S. vanzolinii
were clearly separated from the other species. We also found that different plant species contributed to dissimilarity among
Saimiri
ranges. Our findings support the hypothesis that tree community structure may promote niche specialization and spatial segregation among primates. We discuss how these patterns could have been favored by historical changes in forest flood patterns, the evolutionary history of
Saimiri
spp., and past competition.
Eleven taxa of primates are found in the floodplains of the western portion of the central Brazilian Amazon, protected in part by the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve. The taxonomy of the ...squirrel monkeys, the number of taxa, and their geographic distributions are still poorly understood. Here we investigate differentiation among the taxa of this genus in Mamirauá, examining their morphology and geographic distribution. We registered 333 points of occurrence of squirrel monkeys and examined 117 specimens deposited in scientific collections. The results of the morphological analyses were generally in good agreement with field observations. Together they indicate the existence of three taxa:
Saimiri vanzolinii
,
Saimiri sciureus macrodon
, and
S. s. cassiquiarensis
. The restricted range of
Saimiri vanzolinii
in the southeastern portion of the reserve covers an area of 870 km
2
, and it is among the smallest of the distribution areas for any Neotropical primate species.
Saimiri sciureus cassiquiarensis
has a disjunct distribution, crossing the Japurá River to the right bank into the reserve in two places, and
S. s. macrodon
is the squirrel monkey ranging widely in the northwest of Mamirauá. There are three areas of parapatry: one between
Saimiri vanzolinii
and
Saimiri sciureus macrodon
and two between
S. vanzolinii
and
S. s. cassiquiarensis
. We recommend that anthropogenic changes in the region be monitored, and conservation measures be taken to protect these primates, especially considering the endemism and very restricted range of
Saimiri vanzolinii
and its consequent vulnerability to extinction.
1. River system dynamics results in ecological heterogeneities that play a central role in maintaining biodiversity in riverine regions. In central Amazonia, large expanses of forest are seasonally ...flooded by nutrient-rich water (várzea forests) or by nutrient-poor water (igapó forests). Inundation patterns and the nutrient load of floodwaters are perhaps the most important abiotic factors determining spatial ecological variations in lowland Amazonia, and so they are expected to strongly influence the structuring of animal communities. 2. We examined how inundation patterns and water-nutrient load influence the structure of neotropical assemblages of bats, one of the most diverse vertebrate groups in tropical forests. Bat assemblages were sampled with mist nets in central Brazilian Amazonia, across a mosaic of várzea, igapó, and non-flooding nutrient-poor terra firme forests in the low- and high-water seasons. 3. An ordination analysis clearly separated the assemblages of the three forest types, demonstrating the structural relevance of both flooding and floodwater-nutrient load. Flooded forests had lower species richness because of the absence or rarity of species that make roosts out of leaves of understorey plants, and of those that feed on fruits of shrubs. Gleaning insectivores, also partly dependent on the understorey, were less abundant in flooded forests, but aerial insectivores more abundant, presumably because they benefited from a less cluttered foraging environment. These differences suggest that flooding affects bat assemblages mostly because it reduces the availability of niches associated with understorey vegetation, which tends to be sparser in flooded forests. 4. Nutrient-rich várzea forests had a bat biomass twice that of nutrient-poor igapó and unflooded forests. This difference was not only mostly due to a greater overall abundance of bats, but also attributable to a disproportionate higher abundance of large-bodied bat species. 5. We concluded that both flooding and floodwater-nutrient load are very important in the structuring of lowland Amazonian bat assemblages, with inundation mostly constraining the species composition of the assemblages, and water-nutrient load mostly influencing the abundance of species. The distinctiveness of bat assemblages associated with flooding emphasizes the need to preserve inundated forests, which are under particular pressure in Amazonia.
The white bald uakari (
Cacajao calvus calvus
) is among the least studied of the Amazonian primates and is found exclusively in remote areas of the central Amazon. The geographic distribution of ...this subspecies is still uncertain, and information on current threats and its conservation status is sparse. In this paper, we identify new locations of occurrence and propose range expansion of the
Cacajao calvus calvus.
Between 2008 and 2010, six field expeditions were undertaken in the middle Solimões region to search for the subspecies and to conduct interviews with local residents regarding its presence. The presence of the white bald uakari was confirmed in the lower courses of the Juruá and lower Jutaí rivers, in addition to areas inside the Mamirauá Reserve, where its presence was expected. Results indicate an expansion and new limits on the geographic range of the subspecies, including its detection in areas in which it had not previously been reported and its exclusion from areas where white bald uakaris were assumed to occur. The new information provided by this study and the remaining shortcomings regarding the distribution of the
calvus
group point to the urgent need for further research on the geographic distribution and habitat use of this group, especially along the lower courses of the Juruá and Jutaí rivers, which remain little explored.
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