Journal Information
Issue
Vol. 16. Issue 2.
Pages 61-120 (April - June 2018)
Essays and perspectives
Biodiversity conservation gaps in Brazil: A role for systematic conservation planning
Carlos Roberto Fonseca, Eduardo Martins Venticinque
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation. 2018;16:61-7
Highlights

  • The Brazilian protected area network plays a key role in biodiversity conservation.

  • Systematic conservation planning determines the existing conservation gaps.

  • Conservation gaps correspond to 16.5% of the Brazilian territory.

  • Conservation gaps are unevenly distributed among the Brazilian biomes.

  • The Brazilian protected area network should be further expanded.

Open access
Threats for bird population restoration: A systematic review
Guilherme Fernando Gomes Destro, Paulo De Marco, Levi Carina Terribile
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation. 2018;16:68-73
Highlights

  • The largest number of restoration attempts was performed in New Zealand.

  • The most frequent species were Grus americana and Notiomystis cincta.

  • Thirteen drivers were pointed out by researchers and practitioners.

  • Considering only environmental causes, predation was the most remarkable driver.

Open access
Thinking about super-dominant populations of native species – Examples from Brazil
Vânia Regina Pivello, Marcus Vinicius Vieira, Maria Tereza Grombone-Guaratini, Dalva Maria Silva Matos
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation. 2018;16:74-82
Highlights

  • Native species populations may become overabundant and cause serious harm.

  • Super-dominant species are poorly considered in the scientific literature.

  • We highlight 16 Brazilian plant species with extreme super-dominant behaviour.

  • Human activities trigger super-dominance, which shall intensify with climate change.

  • Scientists and decision-makers must work closer to identify and manage super-dominant species.

Open access
Vocal dialects and their implications for bird reintroductions
Bruno Araujo Martins, Giovanna Soares Romeiro Rodrigues, Carlos Barros de Araújo
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation. 2018;16:83-9
Highlights

  • We investigated geographical variation of the vocalizations of the Cactus Conure.

  • A method for determining the best releasing areas is proposed based on bioacoustics.

  • A multinomial model was used to classify the locality of traffic-seized specimens’ calls among natural populations.

  • The method can reduce vocal differences among released and natural populations, and thus improve reintroduction efficiency.

Open access
Research letters
Habitat fragmentation narrows the distribution of avian functional traits associated with seed dispersal in tropical forest
Alex A.A. Bovo, Katia M.P.M.B. Ferraz, Marcelo Magioli, Eduardo R. Alexandrino, Érica Hasui, Milton C. Ribeiro, Joseph A. Tobias
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation. 2018;16:90-6
Highlights

  • Reduction in patch size affects functional trait composition of bird communities.

  • Functional richness is directly and positively related to habitat patch size.

  • Large-bodied and large-beaked frugivores are most sensitive to patch size reduction.

  • Loss of sensitive species potentially hinders seed dispersal for large-fruited trees.

  • Conserving large inter-connected patches is key to sustaining ecological processes.

Open access
Geographic range-scale assessment of species conservation status: A framework linking species and landscape features
Ludmila Rattis, Ricardo Dobrovolski, Maurício Talebi, Rafael Loyola
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation. 2018;16:97-104
Highlights

  • We integrate biogeography and landscape ecology to understand the scale dependence of habitat predictors.

  • In straightforward approach, we modeled how the habitat is distributed across the species range.

  • Metrics accounting only for landscape structure presented the same pattern across all scales.

  • When accounting for biological features, local scale analyses do not capture habitat patterns important for species conservation.

  • The landscape carrying capacity is lower for all the species at the range scale.

  • The effect of habitat loss could be even worse when we consider the total area where the species inhabit.

  • Movement ability could mitigate the fragmentation effect at range scale, since connectivity is higher at the range scale.

Open access
Restoring Brazil's road margins could help the country offset its CO2 emissions and comply with the Bonn and Paris Agreements
G.W. Fernandes, A. Banhos, N.P.U. Barbosa, M. Barbosa, H.G. Bergallo, C.G. Loureiro, G.E. Overbeck, R. Solar, ... M.M. Vale
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation. 2018;16:105-12
Highlights

  • The restoration of usually degraded roadsides is proposed.

  • Thousands of hectares are readily available for restoration in Brazil.

  • This corresponds to US$ 26.5 billion in the carbon market.

  • The restoration of these wasted public lands can stimulate ecological restoration.

Open access
The crab harvest in a mangrove forest in south-eastern Brazil: Insights about its maintenance in the long-term
Laura Helena de Oliveira Côrtes, Camilah Antunes Zappes, Ana Paula Madeira Di Beneditto
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation. 2018;16:113-8
Highlights

  • Crab harvest system in the mangrove of Paraíba do Sul River estuary is fragile.

  • Continuity of harvest in last 14 years does not represent management efficiency.

  • Integrative local-based proposals are necessary to crab harvest maintenance.

Open access
Book review
Forest dynamics from an environmental history perspective
Simone R. Freitas
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation. 2018;16:119-20
Full text access
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation