The Amazon Forest

The Amazon Forest
Conservation & Sustainable development
Adalberto Luis Val
INPA, Manaus, AM, Brazil
e-mail: dalval@inpa.gov.br
The Amazon –remarks
Beyond forms and colors
Natural and Anthropogenic Challenges
Reducing deforestation
2
Remarks on the Amazon
4
10% of Brazilian population
near 20 millions Brazilian
Multi-cultural region
The Amazon is the house 180 indian groups,
several hundreds “quilombolas”, and
uncountable communities of “ribeirinhos”
that are involved in many ways with the
regional economy. The Amazon represents
near 10% of the Internal Growth Product
5
Habitat diversity: types of
water of the Amazon
Rio Amazonas
pH ~7
High silt
Low DOC
Rio Negro
pH 3.5 – 5
Ion poor
High DOC
6
Zoological Collections
Invertebrates
354.000 insects
on display
2.000.000 invertebrates in alcohol, glass
slides or lactofenol
599 primary types
3.310 secondary types of insects.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Vitoria amazonica
Phyllanthus fluitans
Eichornia crassipes
Ceratopteris pteridoides
Ludwigia natans
Neptunia oleracea
Pistia stratiotes
Salvinia auriculata
1
Aquatic Plants
floodplain
4
> 400 species
2
5
7
3
6
8
8
Arapaima gigas
Pirarucu
Freshwater stingray
Monocirrhus polyacanthus
Leaf fish
Black arowana
Piranha preta
Cardinal
Pterophyllum altum
Flag fish
Carnegiella strigata
Hatch fish
Catfish – new species
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Cancer
Equator
Capricorn
Val, Almeida-Val & Randall (2007)
Orders
World
Amazon
Families
Genus
Species
Families
Genus
Species
Characiformes
15
252
1335
12
229
1200
Siluriformes
31
400
2211
14
235
1000
Gymnotiformes
6
23
100
6
23
100
10
To understand the biological diversity it is needed to
understand the interactions among ecological,
geological, biogeochemical and evolutionary
processes. Because these interactions are infinite they
possibly occurred only once with the same
peculiarities for a given place and so, local
biodiversity is endemic and specific.
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The Amazon –remarks
Beyond forms and colors
Natural and Anthropogenic Challenges
Reducing deforestation
12
Macrolobium acaciifolium
Fabaceae
Schoengart et al. 2005
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Aniba roseadora
(Pau-rosa)
Ocotea costulata
(Louro cânfora)
Aniba canelilla
(Preciosa)
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IPP:Hb
4
3
GTP vs IPP
ATP vs IPP
2
1
0
0
20
40
1
60
2
80
100
Body Length (cm)
3
NTP:Hb
Val (2000)
Hypoxia/Anoxia & fish of the Amazon
Oxygen
ATP (mole/mole Hb)
Blood oxygen content in Colossoma macropomum
2.5
Hypoxia no surfacing
2.0
1.5
1.0
Hypoxia no surfacing
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
Recovery
GTP (mole/mole Hb)
Blood oxygenation (%)
Recovery
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
Recovery
0
30
60
90
120 150 180 210 240
Time (minutes)
0.0
0
30
60
90
120 150 180 210 240
Time (minutes)17
The Amazon –remarks
Beyond forms and colors
Natural and Anthropogenic Challenges
Reducing deforestation
18
Rio Negro
Ion poor
pH 3 – 5
High DOC
> 1,000 fish species
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2005
20
Rio Negro
Ion poor
pH 3 – 5
High DOC
> 1,000 fish species
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Every fragmented km2 has1.3-1.8
km of border.
Near 20,000 km of new border
appear every year in the Brazilian
Amazon.
Forest borders are highly
vulnerable and the major
source of biodiversity changes.
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Changes in tree composition after 20 years
Pioneer species proliferates at the edges replacing
climax species
Cecropia
Inga
Pourouma
Miconi
Croton
Mabea
Vismia
Guatteria
Tapirira
Bellucia
Chrysophyllum
Hirtela
Virola
Naucleopsis
Couepia
Micropholis
Rinorea
Pouteria
Licania
Protium
-200
density
Increasing
pioneer species
Decreasing
climax species
-100
0
100
200
300
Absolute Changes
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What are the effects of
these environmental
changes on fish?
-UV
-Crude oil mining
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Nuclear DNA damage in tambaqui exposed to UV
A – no damage
B – level 1
C – level 2
D – level 3
E – level 4
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Frequency of Damage (%)
Tambaqui under hypoxia exposed to UV
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Class 0
Class 1
Class 2
Class 3
D0
D1
D2
UVA + U V
B
Class 4
D3
D ose (J/c
m 2)
D4
Groff et al. (2010) J. Photobiol.
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What are the effects of
these environmental
changes on fish?
-UV
- crude oil mining
28
Frequency of pericardial edemas found in D. rerio embryos exposed for 96h
to water soluble fractions (WSF) of Urucu crude oil prepared from different
concentrations (v/v) of oil/total volume. Data represent mean ± standard
deviation from four independent experiments.
Anjos et al. (2010) in prep.
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So …
Organisms are expected to respond to new events as if they are
common events. Hypoxia is a familiar event in the Amazon and so
fish respond to it with adaptations shaped over their existence,
but in the case of anthropogenic pressures these adaptations play
against the animals and kill them.
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The Amazon –remarks
Beyond forms and colors
Natural and Anthropogenic Challenges
Reducing deforestation
31
32
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The hiatus in our understanding of the
relationship between the organisms of the
Amazon and their environment is expressive.
The unknown far exceeds the known.
Beyond the color and forms there are
organisms extremely vulnerable to
anthropogenic effects.
Education, Science and Technology is the
only way to protect the Amazon biodiversity.
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pride of the
Amazon
http://www.inpa.gov.br
Laboratoty of Ecophysiology and
Molecular Evolution
http://leem.inpa.gov.br
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