Bats play important ecosystem roles. Anthropogenic activities cause the decrease and loss of biological diversity and, consequently, the loss of these ecosystem services. One way of measuring local habitat conditions and relating the landscape to biodiversity. Our objective is to investigate how the bat community is influenced by this change in the landscape. Collections were carried out at five points and 76 individuals of 12 species are sampled. Although the points present a high variation in relation to land use, we did not observe any correlation between species richness and guilds with land use. However, the difference in the composition of the guilds is related to the variation in land use, in which 74% of the variation in the abundance of guilds is related to the different patterns of land use. At SENAI, even though it was the place with the greatest anthropic impact, it was the one with the greatest abundance of species, while the points Module two and Sítio Jaburu had the greatest abundance of guilds. This result corroborates the idea that ecosystem services are dependent on habitat maintenance, since the greater the heterogeneity the greater the difference in the composition of the trophic guilds.

The suppression of natural spaces due to the urban sprawl and increase of the built and agricultural environments has impacted the water resources quality, especially in areas with high population density, as the metropolitan regions. Considering the advance in Brazilian environmental legal framework, the present study aims to verify whether land use has still significantly affected water quality, through a case study in the Stones River watershed, a peri-urban river basin at a metropolitan region, Brazil. Analysis of physical-chemical indicators, collected at several sample points with different land-use (urban areas, commercial forestry, riparian forestry, mixed vegetation, pasture, and sugar cane plantation) at different seasons of the year (dry and rainy) were carried out. As a result, it was verified some statistically significant spatiotemporal effects on the of water quality caused associated to the land-use. In conclusion, in spite of the advances in the Brazilian law, land-use has still significantly affected the water quality, demanding public policies and decisions, so that effective compliance with legal guidelines is ensured.

Mangrove forests, which are essential for the maintenance of terrestrial and marine biodiversity on tropical coasts and constitute the main blue-carbon ecosystems for the mitigation of global warming, are among the world’s most threatened ecosystems. Mangrove conservation can greatly benefit from paleoecological and evolutionary studies, as past analogs documenting the responses of these ecosystems to environmental drivers such as climate change, sea level shifts and anthropogenic pressure. A database (CARMA) encompassing nearly all studies on mangroves from the Caribbean region, one of the main mangrove biodiversity hotspots, and their response to past environmental shifts has recently been assembled and analyzed. The dataset contains over 140 sites and ranges from the Late Cretaceous to the present. The Caribbean was the cradle of Neotropical mangroves, where they emerged in the Middle Eocene (~50 million years ago; Ma). A major evolutionary turnover occurred in the Eocene/Oligocene transition (34 Ma) that set the bases for the shaping of modern-like mangroves. However, the diversification of these communities leading to their extant composition did not occur until the Pliocene (~5 Ma). The Pleistocene (the last 2.6 Ma) glacial-interglacial cycles caused spatial and compositional reorganization with no further evolution. Human pressure on Caribbean mangroves increased in the Middle Holocene (~6000 years ago), when pre-Columbian societies began to clear these forests for cultivation. In recent decades, deforestation has significantly reduced Caribbean mangrove cover and it has been estimated that, if urgent and effective conservation actions are not undertaken, these 50 million-year-old ecosystems might disappear in a few centuries. A number of specific conservation and restoration applications based on the results of paleoecological and evolutionary studies are suggested.

The present essay illustrates the methodological and theoretical premises of an emerging research area carrying out both ethological and (bio)ethical implications: the ethology of the freed animal (EFA). Unlike existing ethological fields, EFA focuses neither on non human (NH) animals in natural conditions of freedom in their own environment, nor on NH animals kept in conditions of “captivity”. Rather, EFA consists of a comparative study of NH animals that are released from a condition of more or less abusive captivity and instead relocated in an environment more appropriate to their species-specific and individual characteristics and inclinations. Ideal places for this study are contexts like “Animal sanctuaries” and parks/reserves provided with a camp or station for researchers, where a previously-captive NH animal can be reintroduced in his/her natural habitat. Even though EFA exists already, as a de facto practice of the specialized and/or volunteer personnel running sanctuaries and parks, the field still lacks a recognizable scholarly paradigm, and it is yet to be acknowledged at institutional/academic level. By consequence, one important aim for creating a field like this lies in the establishment of an active interaction between the two parties involved (researchers and sanctuaries/parks operators).

The flora and vegetation of oceanic islands have been deeply affected by human settlement and further landscape modifications during prehistoric and historical times. The study of these transformations is of interest not only for understanding how current island biotas and ecological communities have been shaped but also for informing biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. This paper compares two oceanic insular entities of disparate geographical, environmental, biological, historical and cultural characteristics – Rapa Nui (Pacific Ocean) and the Azores Islands (Atlantic Ocean) – in terms of human settlement and further landscape anthropization. The similarities and differences between these islands/archipelagos are discussed considering their permanent colonization, the possibility of earlier settlements, the removal of the original forests and the further landscape transformations leading to either full floristic/vegetational degradation (Rapa Nui) or major replacement (Azores). This comparison uses evidence from varied disciplines, notably paleoecology, archaeology, anthropology and history, to obtain a holistic view of the development of the respective socioeconomic systems from a human ecodynamic perspective. The most relevant issues still to be resolved are identified and some prospects for future research are suggested. The cases of Rapa Nui and Azores Islands may help set a conceptual basis for ocean-wide global comparisons among oceanic islands/archipelagos.