Use of cover data to model species abundance distributions through continuous probability functions.

Species abundance distribution (SAD) models describe the abundances of the species within ecological communities. SAD modelling has been developed using frequency distributions that require the use of count data (number of individuals). However, many organisms, such as most plants, cannot be counted.

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities.

Trees structure the Earth's most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge.

Estimating the impact of implementation and timing of the COVID-19 vaccination programme in Brazil: a counterfactual analysis.

Background: Vaccines developed between 2020 and 2021 against the SARS-CoV-2 virus were designed to diminish the severity and prevent deaths due to COVID-19. However, estimates of the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns in achieving these goals remain a methodological challenge. In this work, we developed a Bayesian statistical model to estimate the number of deaths and hospitalisations averted by vaccination of older adults (above 60 years old) in Brazil.

Modelling the impact of school reopening and contact tracing strategies on Covid-19 dynamics in different epidemiologic settings in Brazil.

We simulate the impact of school reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic in three major urban centers in Brazil to identify the epidemiological indicators and the best timing for the return of in-school activities and the effect of contact tracing as a mitigation measure. Our goal is to offer guidelines for evidence-based policymaking. We implement an extended SEIR model stratified by age and considering contact networks in different settings - school, home, work, and community, in which the infection transmission rate is affected by various intervention measures.

Wildfires disproportionately affected jaguars in the Pantanal.

The Pantanal wetland harbours the second largest population of jaguars in the world. Alongside climate and land-use changes, the recent mega-fires in the Pantanal may pose a threat to the jaguars' long-term survival. To put these growing threats into perspective, we addressed the reach and intensity of fires that have affected jaguar conservation in the Pantanal ecoregion over the last 16 years.

Model-based estimation of transmissibility and reinfection of SARS-CoV-2 P.1 variant.

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern (VOC) P.1 (Gamma variant) emerged in the Amazonas State, Brazil, in November 2020. The epidemiological consequences of its mutations have not been widely studied, despite detection of P.

Percolation across households in mechanistic models of non-pharmaceutical interventions in SARS-CoV-2 disease dynamics.

Since the emergence of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), mathematical modelling has become an important tool for planning strategies to combat the pandemic by supporting decision-making and public policies, as well as allowing an assessment of the effect of different intervention scenarios. A proliferation of compartmental models were developed by the mathematical modelling community in order to understand and make predictions about the spread of COVID-19. While compartmental models are suitable for simulating large populations, the underlying assumption of a well-mixed population might be problematic when considering non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) which have a major impact on the connectivity between individuals in a population.

A pragmatic approach for producing theoretical syntheses in ecology.

It has been proposed that ecological theory develops in a pragmatic way. This implies that ecologists are free to decide what, from the knowledge available to them, they will use to build models and learn about phenomena. Because in fields that develop pragmatically knowledge generation is based on the decisions of individuals and not on a set of predefined axioms, the best way to produce theoretical synthesis in such fields is to assess what individuals are using to support scientific studies.

Towards a pragmatic use of statistics in ecology.

Although null hypothesis testing (NHT) is the primary method for analyzing data in many natural sciences, it has been increasingly criticized. Recently, approaches based on information theory (IT) have become popular and were held by many to be superior because it enables researchers to properly assess the strength of the evidence that data provide for competing hypotheses. Many studies have compared IT and NHT in the context of model selection and stepwise regression, but a systematic comparison of the most basic uses of statistics by ecologists is still lacking.

Brazil in the face of new SARS-CoV-2 variants: emergencies and challenges in public health.

This article discusses the epidemic situation of Covid-19 in Brazil, in the face of the emergence of a new strain called P.1, which is more transmissible and may be associated with reinfection. Given the collapse of hospital care in Manaus in January 2021 and the results of three recent preprints, each that reports increased transmissibility of the P.

The erosion of biodiversity and biomass in the Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot.

Tropical forests are being deforested worldwide, and the remaining fragments are suffering from biomass and biodiversity erosion. Quantifying this erosion is challenging because ground data on tropical biodiversity and biomass are often sparse. Here, we use an unprecedented dataset of 1819 field surveys covering the entire Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot.

The potential spread of Covid-19 and government decision-making: a retrospective analysis in Florianópolis, Brazil.

Objective: To analyze the association between the transmission potential of SARS-CoV-2 and the decisions made by the municipal government of Florianópolis (Brazil) regarding social distancing.

Methods: We analyzed new cases of COVID-19 identified in Florianópolis residents between February 1 and July 14, 2020, using a nowcasting approach. Decrees related to COVID-19 published in the Official Gazette of the Municipality between February 1 and July 14, 2020 were also analyzed.

Light intensity regulates flower visitation in Neotropical nocturnal bees.

The foraging activity of diurnal bees often relies on flower availability, light intensity and temperature. We do not know how nocturnal bees, which fly at night and twilight, cope with these factors, especially as light levels vary considerably from night to day and from night to night due to moon phase and cloud cover. Given that bee apposition compound eyes function at their limits in dim light, we expect a strong dependence of foraging activity on light intensity in nocturnal bees.

Disentangling the effects of sampling scale and size on the shape of species abundance distributions.

Many authors have tried to explain the shape of the species abundance distribution (SAD). Some of them have suggested that sampling spatial scale is an important factor shaping SADs. These suggestions, however, did not consider the indirect and well-known effect of sample size, which increases as samples are combined to generate SADs at larger spatial scales.

NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES: a data set on carnivore distribution in the Neotropics.

Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae.

Biased-corrected richness estimates for the Amazonian tree flora.

Amazonian forests are extraordinarily diverse, but the estimated species richness is very much debated. Here, we apply an ensemble of parametric estimators and a novel technique that includes conspecific spatial aggregation to an extended database of forest plots with up-to-date taxonomy. We show that the species abundance distribution of Amazonia is best approximated by a logseries with aggregated individuals, where aggregation increases with rarity.

Climate drivers of malaria at its southern fringe in the Americas.

In this work we analyze potential environmental drivers of malaria cases in Northwestern Argentina. We inspect causal links between malaria and climatic variables by means of the convergent cross mapping technique, which provides a causality criterion from the theory of dynamic systems. Analysis is based on 12 years of weekly malaria P.

Estimating interaction credit for trophic rewilding in tropical forests.

Trophic rewilding has been suggested as a restoration tool to restore ecological interactions and reverse defaunation and its cascading effects on ecosystem functioning. One of the ecological processes that has been jeopardized by defaunation is animal-mediated seed dispersal. Here, we propose an approach that combines joint species distribution models with occurrence data and species interaction records to quantify the potential to restore seed-dispersal interactions through rewilding and apply it to the Atlantic Forest, a global biodiversity hotspot.

Catastrophic Regime Shift in Water Reservoirs and São Paulo Water Supply Crisis.

The relation between rainfall and water accumulated in reservoirs comprises nonlinear feedbacks. Here we show that they may generate alternative equilibrium regimes, one of high water-volume, the other of low water-volume. Reservoirs can be seen as socio-environmental systems at risk of regime shifts, characteristic of tipping point transitions.

Does extreme environmental severity promote plant facilitation? An experimental field test in a subtropical coastal dune.

The stress gradient hypothesis (SGH) postulates how the balance between plant competition and facilitation shifts along environmental gradients. Early formulations of the SGH predicted that facilitation should increase monotonically with stress. However, a recent theoretical refinement of the SGH postulates stronger facilitation under moderate stress, followed by a decreasing role of facilitation in the most severe environments.

A meta-analysis of plant facilitation in coastal dune systems: responses, regions, and research gaps.

Empirical studies in salt marshes, arid, and alpine systems support the hypothesis that facilitation between plants is an important ecological process in severe or 'stressful' environments. Coastal dunes are both abiotically stressful and frequently disturbed systems. Facilitation has been documented, but the evidence to date has not been synthesized.

An integrated framework to improve the concept of resource specialisation.

Resource specialisation, although a fundamental component of ecological theory, is employed in disparate ways. Most definitions derive from simple counts of resource species. We build on recent advances in ecophylogenetics and null model analysis to propose a concept of specialisation that comprises affinities among resources as well as their co-occurrence with consumers.

Benefit of shading by nurse plant does not change along a stress gradient in a coastal dune.

The proximity of adult neighbors often increases the performance of woody seedlings under harsh environmental conditions but this nurse plant effect becomes less intense when abiotic stress is alleviated, as predicted by the stress gradient hypothesis (SGH). Although some studies have tested how the net nurse effect is changed by stress, few studies have tested how the mechanism that drives the facilitative effect of nurse responds to changes in stress. We conducted field experiments in a subtropical coastal dune to test if shading drives the known nurse effect of adults of the tree Guapira opposita on seedling performance of another tree species, Ternstroemia brasiliensis.

Ecological literacy and beyond: Problem-based learning for future professionals.

Ecological science contributes to solving a broad range of environmental problems. However, lack of ecological literacy in practice often limits application of this knowledge. In this paper, we highlight a critical but often overlooked demand on ecological literacy: to enable professionals of various careers to apply scientific knowledge when faced with environmental problems.