Effects of deforestation on multitaxa community similarity in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

Habitat loss can lead to biotic homogenization (decrease in β diversity) or differentiation (increase in β diversity) of biological communities. However, it is unclear which of these ecological processes predominates in human-modified landscapes. We used data on vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants to quantify β diversity based on species occurrence and abundance among communities in 1367 landscapes with varying amounts of habitat (<30%, 30-60%, or >60% of forest cover) throughout the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

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.

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.

Moving to healthier landscapes: Forest restoration decreases the abundance of Hantavirus reservoir rodents in tropical forests.

Hantavirus Cardiopulmonary Syndrome (HCPS) is a disease with high human lethality rates, whose transmission risk is directly related to the abundance of reservoir rodents. In the Brazilian Atlantic forest, the main reservoirs species, Oligoryzomys nigripes and Necromys lasiurus, are thought to increase in abundance with deforestation. Therefore, forest restoration may contribute to decrease HCPS transmission risk, a topic still unexplored, especially in tropical regions.

NEOTROPICAL ALIEN MAMMALS: a data set of occurrence and abundance of alien mammals in the Neotropics.

Biological invasion is one of the main threats to native biodiversity. For a species to become invasive, it must be voluntarily or involuntarily introduced by humans into a nonnative habitat. Mammals were among first taxa to be introduced worldwide for game, meat, and labor, yet the number of species introduced in the Neotropics remains unknown.

Linking human and ecological components to understand human-wildlife conflicts across landscapes and species.

Human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) are complex conservation challenges that impair both wildlife populations and human livelihood. Research on HWC, however, has traditionally approached ecological and human components separately, hampering a broader understanding of connections between ecological drivers and human dimensions of conflicts. We developed a model that integrates ecological and human components of HWC to investigate how the amount of remaining native forest (forest cover, a key ecological variable known to influence species occurrence and abundance) affects human experiences with wildlife (contact with species and attacks on livestock) and how such experiences influence tolerance via beliefs, emotions, and attitudes.

Shared ways of thinking in Brazil about the science-practice interface in ecology and conservation.

The debate in the literature on the science-practice interface suggests a diversity of opinions on how to link science and practice to improve conservation. Understanding this diversity is key to addressing unequal power relations, avoiding the consideration of only dominant views, and identifying strategies to link science and practice. In turn, linking science and practice should promote conservation decisions that are socially robust and scientifically informed.

Variation in Generic Drug Manufacturers' Product Characteristics.

Objectives: Studies suggest appearance may be an important factor in medication nonadherence. This study was undertaken to characterize the range of appearances and costs of 16 oral solid generic medications in four major chronic diseases/conditions.

Methods: We identified frequently prescribed medications in four therapeutic classes-antidiabetics, 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase inhibitors (statins), beta blockers, and heart failure drugs-and verified that each had at least three generic manufacturer sources in 2016.

ATLANTIC MAMMAL TRAITS: a data set of morphological traits of mammals in the Atlantic Forest of South America.

Measures of traits are the basis of functional biological diversity. Numerous works consider mean species-level measures of traits while ignoring individual variance within species. However, there is a large amount of variation within species and it is increasingly apparent that it is important to consider trait variation not only between species, but also within species.

A conceptual framework for understanding the perspectives on the causes of the science-practice gap in ecology and conservation.

Applying scientific knowledge to confront societal challenges is a difficult task, an issue known as the science-practice gap. In Ecology and Conservation, scientific evidence has been seldom used directly to support decision-making, despite calls for an increasing role of ecological science in developing solutions for a sustainable future. To date, multiple causes of the science-practice gap and diverse approaches to link science and practice in Ecology and Conservation have been proposed.

Who Cares about Forests and Why? Individual Values Attributed to Forests in a Post-Frontier Region in Amazonia.

Understanding the multiple ways people value forests is important, as individual values regarding nature have been shown to partly determine willingness to participate in conservation initiatives. As individual values are influenced by past experiences, the way people value forests may be related to the ecosystem services they use and receive. We here aim to investigate if people value forests because of material and non-material benefits forest provide (material and non-material values), and if these values are defined by previous experiences associated with using forest resources and having frequent contact with forests.

Docosahexaenoic Acid-mediated Inhibition of Heat Shock Protein 90-p23 Chaperone Complex and Downstream Client Proteins in Lung and Breast Cancer.

The molecular chaperone, heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90), is a critical regulator for the proper folding and stabilization of several client proteins, and is a major contributor to carcinogenesis. Specific Hsp90 inhibitors have been designed to target the ATP-binding site in order to prevent Hsp90 chaperone maturation. The current study investigated the effects of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA; C22:6 n-3) on Hsp90 function and downstream client protein expression.

Landscape, Environmental and Social Predictors of Hantavirus Risk in São Paulo, Brazil.

Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) is a disease caused by Hantavirus, which are negative-sense RNA viruses in the family Bunyaviridae that are highly virulent to humans. Numerous factors modify risk of Hantavirus transmission and consequent HPS risk. Human-driven landscape change can foster transmission risk by increasing numbers of habitat generalist rodent species that serve as the principal reservoir host.

Anthropogenic disturbance in tropical forests can double biodiversity loss from deforestation.

Concerted political attention has focused on reducing deforestation, and this remains the cornerstone of most biodiversity conservation strategies. However, maintaining forest cover may not reduce anthropogenic forest disturbances, which are rarely considered in conservation programmes. These disturbances occur both within forests, including selective logging and wildfires, and at the landscape level, through edge, area and isolation effects.

Neotropical forest expansion during the last glacial period challenges refuge hypothesis.

The forest refuge hypothesis (FRH) has long been a paradigm for explaining the extreme biological diversity of tropical forests. According to this hypothesis, forest retraction and fragmentation during glacial periods would have promoted reproductive isolation and consequently speciation in forest patches (ecological refuges) surrounded by open habitats. The recent use of paleoclimatic models of species and habitat distributions revitalized the FRH, not by considering refuges as the main drivers of allopatric speciation, but instead by suggesting that high contemporary diversity is associated with historically stable forest areas.

Conservation economics. Response to Comment on "Using ecological thresholds to evaluate the costs and benefits of set-asides in a biodiversity hotspot".

Finney claims that we did not include transaction costs while assessing the economic costs of a set-aside program in Brazil and that accounting for them could potentially render large payments for environmental services (PES) projects unfeasible. We agree with the need for a better understanding of transaction costs but provide evidence that they do not alter the feasibility of the set-aside scheme we proposed.

Assessing the utility of statistical adjustments for imperfect detection in tropical conservation science.

In recent years, there has been a fast development of models that adjust for imperfect detection. These models have revolutionized the analysis of field data, and their use has repeatedly demonstrated the importance of sampling design and data quality. There are, however, several practical limitations associated with the use of detectability models which restrict their relevance to tropical conservation science.

Using ecological thresholds to evaluate the costs and benefits of set-asides in a biodiversity hotspot.

Ecological set-asides are a promising strategy for conserving biodiversity in human-modified landscapes; however, landowner participation is often precluded by financial constraints. We assessed the ecological benefits and economic costs of paying landowners to set aside private land for restoration. Benefits were calculated from data on nearly 25,000 captures of Brazilian Atlantic Forest vertebrates, and economic costs were estimated for several restoration scenarios and values of payment for ecosystem services.

Docosahexaenoic acid attenuates breast cancer cell metabolism and the Warburg phenotype by targeting bioenergetic function.

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA; C22:6n-3) depresses mammary carcinoma proliferation and growth in cell culture and in animal models. The current study explored the role of interrupting bioenergetic pathways in BT-474 and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell lines representing respiratory and glycolytic phenotypes, respectively and comparing the impacts of DHA with a non-transformed cell line, MCF-10A. Metabolic investigation revealed that DHA supplementation significantly diminished the bioenergetic profile of the malignant cell lines in a dose-dependent manner.

Key roles for GRB2-associated-binding protein 1, phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase, cyclooxygenase 2, prostaglandin E2 and transforming growth factor alpha in linoleic acid-induced upregulation of lung and breast cancer cell growth.

The distribution of omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) intake in Western diets is disproportionate, containing an overabundance of the omega-6 PUFA, linoleic acid (LA; C18:2). Increased enrichment with LA has been shown to contribute to the enhancement of tumorigenesis in several cancer models. Previous work has indicated that phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) may play a key role in LA-induced tumorigenesis.