Universidade Federal de Viçosa

About: Universidade Federal de Viçosa is a education organization based out in Viçosa, Brazil. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Biology. The organization has 16012 authors who have published 26711 publications receiving 353416 citations.

Would protecting tropical forest fragments provide carbon and biodiversity cobenefits under REDD

Abstract: Tropical forests store vast amounts of carbon and are the most biodiverse terrestrial habitats, yet they are being converted and degraded at alarming rates. Given global shortfalls in the budgets required to prevent carbon and biodiversity loss, we need to seek solutions that simultaneously address both issues. Of particular interest are carbon-based payments under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism to also conserve biodiversity at no additional cost. One potential is for REDD+ to protect forest fragments, especially within biomes where contiguous forest cover has diminished dramatically, but we require empirical tests of the strength of any carbon and biodiversity cobenefits in such fragmented systems. Using the globally threatened Atlantic Forest landscape, we measured above-ground carbon stocks within forest fragments spanning 13 to 23 442 ha in area and with different degrees of isolation. We related these stocks to tree community structure and to the richness and abundance of endemic and IUCN Red-listed species. We found that increasing fragment size has a positive relationship with above-ground carbon stock and with abundance of IUCN Red-listed species and tree community structure. We also found negative relationships between distance from large forest block and tree community structure, endemic species richness and abundance, and IUCN Red-listed species abundance. These resulted in positive congruence between carbon stocks and Red-listed species, and the abundance and richness of endemic species, demonstrating vital cobenefits. As such, protecting forest fragments in hotspots of biodiversity, particularly larger fragments and those closest to sources, offers important carbon and biodiversity cobenefits. More generally, our results suggest that macroscale models of cobenefits under REDD+ have likely overlooked key benefits at small scales, indicating the necessity to apply models that include finer-grained assessments in fragmented landscapes rather than using averaged coarse-grained cells.

Plastid genomics in horticultural species: importance and applications for plant population genetics, evolution, and biotechnology.

Abstract: During the evolution of the eukaryotic cell, plastids and mitochondria arose from an endosymbiotic process, which determined the presence of three genetic compartments into the incipient plant cell. After that, these three genetic materials from host and symbiont suffered several rearrangements, bringing on a complex interaction between nuclear and organellar gene products. Nowadays, plastids harbor a small genome with ~130 genes in a 100-220 kb sequence in higher plants. Plastid genes are mostly highly conserved between plant species, being useful for phylogenetic analysis in higher taxa. However, intergenic spacers have a relatively higher mutation rate and are important markers to study genetic diversity and divergence within natural plant populations. The predominant uniparental inheritance of plastids is like a highly desirable feature for phylogeny studies. Moreover, the gene content and genome rearrangements are efficient tools to capture and understand evolutionary events between different plant species. Currently, genetic engineering of the plastid genome (plastome) offers a number of attractive advantages as high-level of foreign protein expression, marker-gene excision, gene expression in operon and transgene containment because of maternal inheritance of plastid genome in most crops. Therefore, plastid genome can be used for adding new characteristics related to synthesis of metabolic compounds, biopharmaceutical and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Here, we describe the importance and applications of plastid genome as tools for genetic and evolutionary studies, and plastid transformation focusing on increasing the performance of horticultural species in the field.