Submitted by Maria Eneide de Souza Araujo (mearaujo@ipen.br) on 2015-02-25T13:31:17Z No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2015-02-25T13:31:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / No panorama atual de mudanças climáticas, o Metano (CH4) é considerado o segundo principal gás de efeito estufa antrópico. Este trabalho teve como objetivo estudar o papel da Amazônia na emissão global de CH4, sendo esta a maior floresta tropical do mundo. Neste estudo foram realizados perfis verticais, utilizando aviões de pequeno porte, desde 150 m da superfície até 4,4 km, em quatro localidades da Bacia Amazônica, formando um grande quadrante abrangendo toda a Bacia. Os locais foram: próximo a Santarém (SAN; 2,8°S, 54,9°O), Alta Floresta (ALF; 8,8°S, 56,7°O), Rio Branco (RBA; 9,3°S, 67,6°O) e Tabatinga (TAB; 5,9°S, 70,0°O). Foram realizados quatro anos (2010-2013) de medidas contínuas em escala regional, quinzenalmente, totalizando 293 perfis verticais. Até o presente momento estas medidas são únicas e representam uma nova abordagem nas emissões nesta escala. Foram calculados os fluxos de CH4 nestas quatro localidades por meio do Método de Integração de Coluna e os fluxos anuais foram calculados através de média proporcional, considerando a área de influência de cada localidade. Os anos de 2010 e 2012 foram anos de seca, enquanto 2011 e 2013 foram anos com precipitação acima da média na Amazônia. Dos quatro anos de estudo apenas 2011 apresentou uma temperatura inferior a média. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que a Amazônia atua como uma importante fonte de CH4, com uma emissão de 25,4 Tg ano-1 (4% - 5% da emissão global), considerando a área da Amazônia Brasileira (4,2 milhões de km2). As emissões nesta região apresentaram variações regionais e anuais, com maiores emissões nos anos de seca. A emissão pela queima de biomassa não foi significativa nas regiões de estudo, enquanto as estimativas de emissões por fermentação entérica e manejo dos dejetos de animais foram significativas na maioria destas regiões. Os resultados obtidos ressaltam a importância da realização de estudos em escala regional para esclarecer o comportamento de toda a área da Bacia Amazônica Brasileira. / Tese (Doutorado em Tecnologia Nuclear) / IPEN/T / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN-CNEN/SP / FAPESP:11/17914-0

No description available.

The Amazon River drainage basin is known as the most biodiverse region in the world. Regarding freshwater fish, this region contains around 15% of the world's fish richness. The fish family Serrasalmidae have a variety of feeding preferences including Pacus (herbivores) and Piranhas (carnivores). Fruit eating fish species are evolutionarily the oldest species in the family and have a mutualistic interaction with flooded forests. Considering the diversity of feeding habits of the Serrasalmidae family, it represents an excellent model to study ecological questions related to factors that influence the spatial distribution of species and factors that contribute to the maintenance of biodiversity. I first analyzed how differences in dietary preferences influence the spatial distribution and habitat associations of species at the landscape scale using diet data and three proxies of habitat association derived from satellite products. Using Phylogenetic Generalized Least Squares models I evaluated the relationship between habitat association and feeding guilds. Differences in resource distribution (assessed through feeding guilds) can influence habitat associations. Considering the hydrological variability (i.e., floodplain extent) and landscape heterogeneity that characterize floodplains, the patterns of habitat association vary with the spatial scale considered. Second, I identified factors that aid in sustaining aquatic biodiversity in floodplain forests of the Amazon River basin, focusing on frugivorous fish. I used descriptors of the floodplain ecosystem- and landscape-level variables to assess their contribution to the maintenance of fish species richness. Using Generalized Linear Models (GLM) with negative binomial distribution I found that greater plant richness could offer a greater variety of food resources for frugivorous fishes and that a more extensive floodplain area provides larger forested habitat for fishes that depend on forest-derived food resources, as such subbasins with these characteristics support a greater frugivorous fish species richness. This work provides valuable information on species habitat associations by fish as well as food resource dynamics, floodplain dependence, and advances our understanding of the intricate relationship between forests and fish at a basin scale. This information is critical for assessing the impact of anthropogenic activities on freshwater ecosystems and can be used to inform conservation strategies in the tropics.

Conservation of the world's biodiversity is increasingly viewed as a development problem, requiring the alleviation of poverty together with the promotion of alternative livelihoods in resource-reliant communities. To be successful, such efforts must recognize the underlying logic of resource-users' livelihood choices. This study uses the activity of aquarium fish extraction in the Peruvian Amazon as a case study through which to examine the role that physical and non-physical assets (primarily knowledge) might play in determining households' participation patterns. An initial survey of the regional trade, undertaken through interviews with trade participants (n = 38) and analysis of government documents, revealed a large, valuable and complex industry. Data gathered through surveys among households in two proximate fishing villages (n = 37) indicated large inter- and intra-village variation in trade participation. Households that specialize in the activity tend to be young, and rich in nonphysical assets of knowledge and social capital.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Geography, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 22, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 228-249). Also issued in print.

No description available.

This ethnoecological study of the Makushi Amerindians of Amazonian Guyana explores the place of plants in the indigenous culture and cosmology. The North Rupununi, the homeland of the Makushi people, is a bioculturally diverse mosaic of neotropical savannahs, forests, and wetlands. As subsistence hunters, fishers, and horticulturalists, the Makushi live in a constant and dynamic interaction with their ecologically rich surroundings. Against the human-faunal bias latent in much Amazonian anthropology, I place plants firmly at the centre of analysis, a positioning that mirrors their centrality in the ethnographic context. Human-plant encounters explored herein include swidden agriculture, the cultivation of bitter cassava, the fermentation of cassava drinks using a domesticated fungus, the use of a category of charm plants, and the consumption of plant substances in shamanic ritual. With the Makushi, I emphasise the status of plants as living selves and agents of semiosis, occupying perspectives on the world in and outside of their interactions with human beings. In order to investigate ethno-theories of life, I attempt to understand the constitution of the person - and associated notions of body and soul - in the indigenous cosmology. Makushi ontology can be characterised as animic - though as I argue, it also incorporates naturalistic and analogic elements. Thus, it is poly-ontological. This study pursues a dual goal: first, to pay heed to the trans-specific domain of living entities revealed in the Makushi ethnoecology, and second, to rethink conventional symbolic frameworks characteristic of anthropological approaches to culture. I explore the application of a more robust approach to sign-flows in nature - Peircian ecosemiotics - that allows for the analysis of plant communication, birdcalls, insect stings, and leaf patterns, as well as human language. In tracing these interspecific webs of signification, conclusions are drawn about the varied ways in which Makushi people engage with and think about their living environment. At the same time, many Makushi multispecies engagements are based on the physical transfer of substances between bodies of different kinds. In order to better account for this pervasive 'substance logic', greater attention must be paid to indigenous notions of corporeality and personhood. In doing so, I propose a dual analytical model that takes both the flows of signs and the flows of substances as its combined objective. This approach enables new conclusions to be drawn about multispecies relationality in indigenous Amazonian cosmologies.

Ensemble simulations of smoke aerosol radiative effects with a regional climate model in the Amazon has been conducted to investigate the radiative effects of aerosols on clouds, rainfall, and circulation from dry to wet season. The results of the ensemble simulations suggest that the radiative effect of the smoke aerosols can reduce daytime surface radiative and sensible fluxes, the depth and instability of the planetary boundary layer (PBL), consequently the clouds in the lower troposphere in early afternoon in the smoke center, where the aerosols optical depth, AOD, exceeds 0.3. The aerosol radiative forcing also appears to weaken moisture transport into the smoke center and increase moisture transport and cloudiness in the region upwind to the smoke center, namely, the northern Amazon. Anomalous wind convergence over the equatorial western Amazon occurs to compensate the anomalous wind divergence in the southern Amazon, leading to an increase of both clouds and rainfall in that region. The increased atmospheric thermodynamic stability in Southern Amazonia also appears to block synoptic cyclonic activities propagated from extratropical South America, leading to an increased synoptic cyclonic activities and rainfall in southern Brazil, Paraguay and northern Argentina. Evidently, the dynamic response of the monsoon circulation plays a major role in determining the pattern of rainfall change induced by the radiative effect of the aerosols.

O objetivo do presente trabalho é analisar os cruzeiros fluviais de luxo que navegam no rio Amazonas, considerando as bases normativas relacionadas à sua atuação em território brasileiro, assim como o uso corporativo que fazem do território. Para tanto, as localidades de Macapá, Belém, Santarém, Alter do Chão, Boca da Valéria, Parintins e Manaus constituíram bases empíricas da análise, pois se tratam dos locais onde os referidos cruzeiros realizam paradas ao longo do rio. Como procedimento metodológico foi realizado levantamento bibliográfico de fontes secundárias e a realização de um trabalho de campo por todas as localidades acima citadas. Devido ao objeto de estudo ser os cruzeiros de luxo, foi realizado um levantamento de informações sobre o mercado de luxo, pois o setor de cruzeiros é segmentado, a exemplo da atuação do mercado de luxo. Após este levantamento de informações foi realizada a análise da navegação dos cruzeiros fluviais de luxo no rio Amazonas, envolvendo as empresas de cruzeiro, as entidades portuárias e as secretarias estaduais de turismo. Buscamos demonstrar como ocorre a divisão do trabalho no espaço e a atuação das empresas de cruzeiros fluviais de luxo que operam no local. Ao atuarem de forma cooperativa entre si, são produzidas redes de conexão no território que as unem numa lógica particular. A divisão territorial de uma empresa é manifestada no território à medida que ela constitui sua base territorial de existência e o território passa a ser ocupado de acordo com lógicas escalares diversas (global, nacional e intra-urbano). A privatização do território a partir do relacionamento entre as empresas ocorre com a utilização de recursos públicos, possibilitada pelos sistemas de engenharia presentes. Constatamos que ocorre a oligopolização e o uso corporativo do rio Amazonas, principalmente nos locais de paradas dos navios. As empresas atuam de forma sazonal, identificada na forma de temporadas. Esta sazonalidade está ligada às estratégias corporativas que analisam a oferta de cruzeiros, a demanda de turistas, os custos logísticos e o tamanho dos navios, que devem atender às especificações técnicas dos portos e locais por onde trafegam. Além disso, as empresas promovem uma circulação seletiva, demandam melhorias nas infraestruturas portuárias e a seletividade das localidades por onde atuam. / The purpose of the present work is to analyze the luxury river cruises that navigate the Amazon River, considering the normative bases related to its performances in the Brazilian territory, as well as the corporate use they make of the territory. For this purpose, the locations of Macapá, Belém, Santarém, Alter do Chão, Boca de Valéria, Parintins and Manaus were empirical bases of the analysis, since they are the places where the mentioned cruises stop along the Amazon River. As a methodological procedure a bibliographic survey of secondary sources and a fieldwork was carried out by all the aforementioned localities. In this fieldwork, researches were carried out in universities and in public and private organizations with direct or indirect relation with the luxury river cruises in the region. Due to the object of study being the luxury cruises, a survey of information about the luxury market was also carried out, as the cruise sector is segmented, like the luxury market. After this survey, the analysis of the navigation of the luxury river cruises in the Amazon River was carried out, involving cruise companies, port entities and state tourist offices. We sought to demonstrate how the division of labor and the performance of luxury river cruise companies in the Amazon River occur. By working cooperatively with one another, connection networks are produced in the territory that unites them in a particular logic. The companie\'s territorial division is stated as it constitutes its territorial base of existence and the territory starts to be occupied according to diverse scalar logics (global, national and intra-urban).The privatization of the territory from the relationship between the companies occurs with the use of public resources, made possible by the present engineering systems. We have observed that the formation of an oligopoly and the corporate use of the Amazon River occur, especially in the places where the ships stop. The companies act in a seasonal way, identified in the form of seasons. This seasonality is linked to corporate strategies that analyze cruises, tourist demand, logistics costs and the size of ships, which must meet the technical specifications of the ports and places they travel. In addition, the companies promote a selective circulation, demand improvements in the port infrastructures and the selectivity of the localities where they operate.

A bacia hidrográfica do rio Amazonas abrange uma área de 6 × 106 km2 da região norte da América do Sul. O seu canal mais longo, com quase 7.000 km tem origem nos Andes peruanos e cruza todo o continente até chegar na foz, no Atlântico Equatorial. Apesar dos diversos esforços científicos, os processos que guiaram a evolução da paisagem na Amazônia ainda são discutidos, assim como a data do estabelecimento dessa grande bacia hidrográfica que culminou com a forma¸cao do rio Amazonas como um rio transcontinental. O presente trabalho teve como objetivo estudar como se deu a evolução da paisagem na regiao norte da América do Sul, com foco na forma¸cao do Rio Amazonas, através de simulações usando um modelo numérico que incorpora orogenia, flexura, isostasia da litosfera, clima e processos superficiais de erosao e sedimentação. Diversos experimentos numéricos foram realizados alterando-se a topografia original, taxa de espessamento crustal nos Andes, erodibilidade das rochas, entre outros parâmetros. Constatou-se que o instante da formação do rio transcontinental é muito sensível a modificações na paleotopografia inicial do modelo e erodibilidade das rochas. Porém, em todos os modelos, o instante da formação do rio Amazonas ´e marcado por um aumento expressivo na taxa de sedimentação na foz do rio Amazonas e uma correspondente queda no aporte sedimentar na foz do rio Orinoco. Adicionalmente, um aumento na taxa de espessamento crustal na região andina não modifica expressivamente as taxas de sedimentação na foz do Amazonas. Isso ocorre pois o aumento no aporte sedimentar proveniente do Andes é essencialmente depositado nas bacias de ante-país devido ao aumento no espaço de acomodação gerado pela carga adicional sobre a placa litosférica. O aumento da taxa de precipitação sobre a cordilheira dos Andes se reflete em um aumento nas taxas de deposição nas bacias de ante-país, na Bacia do Solimões e na foz do Orinoco, porém na foz do Amazonas as taxas de sedimentação sofrem um crescimento pouco expressivo. Já um aumento na precipitação sobre todo o modelo faz com que, em todas as bacias sedimentares, as taxas de sedimentação sofram um aumento gradativo. / The Amazon hydrographic basin is the largest in the world, covering 6 × 106 km2 of northern South America. Its longest channel, with almost 7000 km, brings sediment from the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean, in brazilian equatorial coast. Despite the scientific efforts, the timing of origin of this hydrographic basin is still debated, as well as the processes that guided its evolution and shaped the landscape in this region. In my research, I used an adaptation of the numerical model developed by Sacek (2014) to study the landscape evolution of the north of South America, focusing on the establishment of the Amazon River as a transcontinental river. The numerical model accounts for the contributions of orogeny, climate, isostasy and flexure of the lithosphere, and surface processes (erosion and deposition of sediments). I performed dozens of experiments, testing a range of values for the different parameters of the model, and I was able to reproduce, in many aspects, the evolution of landscape in the region, as hypothesized by others researchers. I also observed in my results a changing in drainage pattern, that corresponds to the onset of the Amazon River. Furthermore, it was predicted by the simulations, at the moment of the onset of the Amazon River, a great increase in sedimentary deposition at the Amazon Fan, simultaneously with a fall in sedimentary deposition at the Orinoco mouth. However, in the simulations, the moment of the onset of the Amazon River is very sensitive to changes in the initial topography of the model. I also tested the influence of crustal thickening rate in the Andes, precipitation rate, and resistance to erosion of sediments of the model, in the sedimentation pattern of the region. I concluded that an increase in precipitation rate in the model can significantly alter the rate of deposition at the region of Amazons mouth and in others sedimentary basins in the model. However, an increase in crustal thickening or precipitation rate in the Andes does not expressively change the rate of deposition at the region of Amazons mouth, but changes occur at foreland basins and at Solimoes Basin.