A near real-time web-system for predicting fire spread across the Cerrado biome.

Wildfires are aggravating due to climate change. Public policies need territorial intelligence to prevent and promptly fight fires, especially in vast regions like Brazil. To this end, we have developed a fire-spread prediction system for the Brazilian Cerrado, the biome most affected by wildfires in South America.

Increased Cholinergic Tone Causes Pre-synaptic Neuromuscular Degeneration and is Associated with Impaired Diaphragm Function.

In vertebrates, muscle activity is dependent on acetylcholine (ACh) released from neuromuscular junctions (NMJs), and changes in cholinergic neurotransmission are linked to a variety of neuromuscular diseases, including congenital myasthenic syndromes (CMS). The storage and release of ACh depends on the activity of the Vesicular Acetylcholine Transporter (VAChT), a rate-limiting step for cholinergic neurotransmission whose loss of function mutations was shown to cause human congenital myasthenia. However, we know much less about increased VAChT activity, due to copy number variations, for example.

Evaluation of the neuromuscular junction in a middle-aged mouse model of congenital myasthenic syndrome.

Introduction: Reduced expression of the vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT) leads to changes in the distribution and shape of synaptic vesicles (SVs) at neuromuscular junctions (NMJs), suggesting vesicular acetylcholine (ACh) as a key component of synaptic structure and function. It is poorly understood how long-term changes in cholinergic transmission contribute to age- and disease-related degeneration in the motor system.

Methods: In this study we performed confocal imaging, electrophysiology, electron microscopy, and analyses of respiratory mechanics of the diaphragm NMJ components in 12-month-old wild-type (WT) and VAChTKD mice.

BioDinamica: a toolkit for analyses of biodiversity and biogeography on the Dinamica-EGO modelling platform.

Biogeography and macroecology are at the heart of the debate on ecology and evolution. We have developed the BioDinamica package, a suite of user-friendly graphical programs for analysing spatial patterns of biogeography and macroecology. BioDinamica includes analyses of beta-diversity, species richness, endemicity, phylo-diversity, species distribution models, predictive models of biodiversity patterns, and several tools for spatial biodiversity analysis.

Neuromuscular synapse degeneration without muscle function loss in the diaphragm of a murine model for Huntington's Disease.

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease characterized by chorea, incoordination and psychiatric and behavioral symptoms. The leading cause of death in HD patients is aspiration pneumonia, associated with respiratory dysfunction, decreased respiratory muscle strength and dysphagia. Although most of the motor symptoms are derived from alterations in the central nervous system, some might be associated with changes in the components of motor units (MU).

Brazil's Market for Trading Forest Certificates.

Brazil faces an enormous challenge to implement its revised Forest Code. Despite big losses for the environment, the law introduces new mechanisms to facilitate compliance and foster payment for ecosystem services (PES). The most promising of these is a market for trading forest certificates (CRAs) that allows landowners to offset their restoration obligations by paying for maintaining native vegetation elsewhere.

Changes in structure and function of diaphragm neuromuscular junctions from BACHD mouse model for Huntington's disease.

Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a progressive decline of motor and cognitive functions. It is caused by a polyglutamine expansion in the huntingtin (htt) protein, which then leads to neurodegeneration that span both the central and peripheral nervous system. Previous works have shown that htt interacts with several proteins from the neurotransmitter release machinery causing synaptic dysfunction.

Reduced expression of the vesicular acetylcholine transporter and neurotransmitter content affects synaptic vesicle distribution and shape in mouse neuromuscular junction.

In vertebrates, nerve muscle communication is mediated by the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine packed inside synaptic vesicles by a specific vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT). Here we used a mouse model (VAChT KD(HOM)) with 70% reduction in the expression of VAChT to investigate the morphological and functional consequences of a decreased acetylcholine uptake and release in neuromuscular synapses. Upon hypertonic stimulation, VAChT KD(HOM) mice presented a reduction in the amplitude and frequency of miniature endplate potentials, FM 1-43 staining intensity, total number of synaptic vesicles and altered distribution of vesicles within the synaptic terminal.

Membrane cholesterol regulates different modes of synaptic vesicle release and retrieval at the frog neuromuscular junction.

We investigated the effects of cholesterol removal on spontaneous and KCl-evoked synaptic vesicle recycling at the frog neuromuscular junction. Cholesterol removal by methyl-β-cyclodextrin (MβCD) induced an increase in the frequency of miniature end-plate potentials (MEPPs) and spontaneous destaining of synaptic vesicles labeled with the styryl dye FM1-43. Treatment with MβCD also increased the size of MEPPs without causing significant changes in nicotinic receptor clustering.

Dependence of hydropower energy generation on forests in the Amazon Basin at local and regional scales.

Tropical rainforest regions have large hydropower generation potential that figures prominently in many nations' energy growth strategies. Feasibility studies of hydropower plants typically ignore the effect of future deforestation or assume that deforestation will have a positive effect on river discharge and energy generation resulting from declines in evapotranspiration (ET) associated with forest conversion. Forest loss can also reduce river discharge, however, by inhibiting rainfall.

Committed carbon emissions, deforestation, and community land conversion from oil palm plantation expansion in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Industrial agricultural plantations are a rapidly increasing yet largely unmeasured source of tropical land cover change. Here, we evaluate impacts of oil palm plantation development on land cover, carbon flux, and agrarian community lands in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. With a spatially explicit land change/carbon bookkeeping model, parameterized using high-resolution satellite time series and informed by socioeconomic surveys, we assess previous and project future plantation expansion under five scenarios.

Simulating fire regimes in the Amazon in response to climate change and deforestation.

Fires in tropical forests release globally significant amounts of carbon to the atmosphere and may increase in importance as a result of climate change. Despite the striking impacts of fire on tropical ecosystems, the paucity of robust spatial models of forest fire still hampers our ability to simulate tropical forest fire regimes today and in the future. Here we present a probabilistic model of human-induced fire occurrence for the Amazon that integrates the effects of a series of anthropogenic factors with climatic conditions described by vapor pressure deficit.

Role of Brazilian Amazon protected areas in climate change mitigation.

Protected areas (PAs) now shelter 54% of the remaining forests of the Brazilian Amazon and contain 56% of its forest carbon. However, the role of these PAs in reducing carbon fluxes to the atmosphere from deforestation and their associated costs are still uncertain. To fill this gap, we analyzed the effect of each of 595 Brazilian Amazon PAs on deforestation using a metric that accounts for differences in probability of deforestation in areas of pairwise comparison.

Balancing conservation and economic sustainability: the future of the Amazon timber industry.

Logging has been a much maligned feature of frontier development in the Amazon. Most discussions ignore the fact that logging can be part of a renewable, environmentally benign, and broadly equitable economic activity in these remote places. We estimate there to be some 4.