Nacional Institute of Science and Technology of the Hymenoptera Parasitoids from Brazilian Southeast Region

Welcome  and learn more about ecology and parasitoids

It is known that biodiversity is the variety of living organisms on Earth, including the species, their genetic diversity and ecosystems. Systems are combined with the interaction of organic matter, inorganic and natural forces, involving food chains and the cycles of nutrients. Biodiversity is complex and dynamic and its management a difficult task. The human species included in this system relates in different ways with other species and its survival depends on how that relationship occurs.

As the first naturalists who were motivated by new discoveries and resources for their needs, the searching for new animal and plant species still motivates science to its description and cataloguing. It is a relatively straightforward task, compared with many advances in technology, but is still very sketchy, with a lot to be done, particularly in neotropical environments. Only 1 / 10 of tropical species are known. The knowledge of biodiversity has already provided the possibility of producing various medicines and agricultural products. This knowledge may create opportunities for professional activities for people involved in courses to undergraduate and graduate programs and to people in communities linked to units of conservation. Trained as parataxonomists they can be envolved in the work of collecting specimens for the scientific collections and may constitute a vector of environmental education within their local communities.

Brazil is one of the countries with greatest biodiversity of the planet, and most of it is still unknown by the scientific community. The loss of biodiversity is a major environmental problem and should be considered on a global scale. Researchers look for ways of integration, such as activities in collaboration, project development, data, information and knowledge exchange on the subject of their studies. Among the important data are the lists of species which help the interpretation of local and global biological changes. The sense of cooperation in the scientific community leads to the construction of new initiatives to improve these and other information.

We Brazilians have a responsibility to preserve many species, ecosystems and natural biological processes. The need for exploitation of natural resources with a view to the development of the country has led to fragmentation of large areas of Brazilian ecosystems. The forest fragmentation is the change of large areas covered by native forests by other ecosystems, usually bringing negative consequences for biota. An important consequence of the process of forest fragmentation is the disorder in the scheme of hydrological basins and promoting climate change and, as a final consequence, the loss of biodiversity.Despite the disappearance of many species as a consequence of fragmentation, the original biodiversity possibly is still present in many of the remaining fragments (especially the larger ones) in Southeastern Brazil. The natural areas of southeastern Brazilian region are formed, basically by the Atlantic forest biomes and savannah (cerrado), whose importance was recently recognized with the inclusion of both the list of hotspots (regions most biologically rich and threatened the planet) by the Conservation International (2000). Those areas are being under an intense process of fragmentation and our protected reserves are becoming isolated from each other.

The seasonal semi-deciduous forest is distributed in almost the entire state of Sao Paulo, part of Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul and Goias, west of Parana and Santa Catarina, extending to Rio Grande do Sul, Paraguay and Argentina. It is a high forest, with complex stratification, high floristic diversity, occurring in the west of the Atlantic plateau. The climate of the region presents seasonality well defined, with dry winter and rainy summer. The cold and the reduction of available water in the soil, along with other environmental factors, make most vegetaion lose a good part of the leaves in winter, reducing the consumption of water and reducing the pace of development of plants. Hence the name semideciduous which distinguishes it from the existing forest along the Brazilian coast, known as ombrophylous dense forest.

The seasonal forest ecosystem semi-deciduou was the most devastated in Brazil, to be located in regions most developed and densely populated and usually by associating itself with soil fertility, the high average, the most sought for expansion of agro-livestock border.

The vegetation of cerrado is around 20% of Brazilian territory with a high degree of endemism. Considered as "hot spot", is among the richest areas and threatened the planet. Despite its length and its importance for biodiversity conservation, the cerrado is not represented in protected areas, only 3% of its original extension are protected in parks and reserves federal or state. The reduction of the original vegetation of the State of Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo determined by the degenerative processes resulting from disorderly human activity under these environments, had as its main vector for the expansion of the agricultural frontier, is highlighting the culture in coffee beginning of the nineteenth century and sugar in the second half of last century and beginning of this century. In this process, there were losses of invaluable repositories of biological diversity, and the forest, representative of one of the most complex diversity of species and high rates of endemism, among the most threatened biomes.

Inside the State of Sao Paulo, where the removal of native vegetation is even more pronounced, the remnants of vegetation are represented by small forest fragments of different sizes, states of degradation of isolation and distance from each other. In general, these conditions do not represent good prospects for conservation, because the loss of biological diversity and genetic causes reduction in the ability of species to adapt to environmental changes, dramatically increasing the chances of extinction of many of these.

The preservation and management of small forest fragments, which may contain the latest species, populations, communities and natural ecosystems, is still focused on a secondary in Brazil. Small reserves, normally somewhat supported by conservationist policies and in many cases, represent most of the remaining natural forests are still poorly studied, however, knowledge of its structure and dynamics is of great importance for planning the recovery and management of degraded areas.

The ecological concepts and conservationists consider of great importance to issue the degree of isolation of forest fragments and arrangement of the landscape, taking into account the connectivity between these communities. Thus, the mosaic of fragments, the corridor of gene flow, the minimum distance between small fragments, as well as stochastic effects of many generations in several sub-populations, are important aspects to substantiate theoretically the actions of ecological restoration of the landscape .In this sense, the surveys conducted in local forest formations, with different physiognomies, shapes and sizes and different types of neighbourhood, degrees of isolation and disturbance, must be focused in order to give way to practical conservation of biodiversity with local focus in the landscape, allowing the inferences as to reuse of the land in accordance with the requirements of the law, and also providing indicators for environmental monitoring.

In general we can say that the fragmentation leads to loss of habitat, isolation of populations, increasing the effect of edge, and changing the native biota, resulting in local extinction of species. Usually more generalist species take advantage of the situation, increasing its density (density compensatory), achieving not only exploit the niche for low interspecific competition, but also taking ownership of other niches.