Brazilian Amazon

Barbossa, A.C., A.A. Boischio, G.A. East, I. Ferrari, A. Goncalves, P.R.M. Silva, and T.M.E. da Cruz. 1995. Mercury contamination in the Brazilian Amazon. Environmental and occupational aspects. Water Air Soil Pollut. 80 109-121. 

Actually, in some South American regions (e.g., the Brazilian Amazon), T. cruzi infection by oral route is the most important mode of Chagas disease transmission. 

Additionally, food contamination can occur by squashing of the insect(s) with food ingredients, especially for fruits, in which case entire insects are squashed in the process of pressing fruit juice. This is the main hypothesis for several outbreaks that occurred in Brazilian Amazon associated with agai juice (Valente et al., 2002). In agai fruit, T. cruzi can be viable, at room temperature, for up to 9 h after contamination (Neves et al., 2007) and in agai pulp for up to 28 h after contamination (Dias et al., 2008b). 

In the Brazilian Amazon, agai pulp can also be contaminated because of a lack of hygiene in the harvesting, transport, and/or processing of the fruits. The T. crazi-infected insects are transported to the processing machine together with the fruits, in baskets or sacks (Valente et al., 2002). 

Pessenda, L. C. R., Gouveia, S. E. M., Aravena, R., Gomez, B. M., Boulet, R., and Ribeiro, A. S. (1998). 14C dating and stable carbon isotopes of soil organic matter in forest savanna boundary areas in the southern Brazilian Amazon region. Radiocarbon 40,1013-1022. 

Glaser, B., Guggenberger, G., Haumaier, L., and Zech, W. (1998a). Sustainable soils in the Brazilian Amazon. In Humic Substances Downunder Understanding and Managing Organic Matter in Soils, Sediments, and Waters, 9th IHSS Conference, Adelaide, Australia. 

The author was Richard Spruce, at one time a British schoolteacher, who was among the early explorers to make the perilous journey into the Amazon. Spruce almost died of dysentery and malaria but survived to become one of botany s greatest collectors. In 1851, while exploring the upper Rio Negro of the Brazilian Amazon, he observed the use oiyag . In 1853, he came upon it twice in Pent. In his Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and Andes, he described its sources, its preparation and its effects upon himself. Unfortunately, Spmce s experience was characterized mainly by his getting sick. 

According to an assessment by Ozorio de Almeida and Campari (1995), the bulk of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is carried out by people moving within the basin, as opposed to newly arriving colonists. 

Ozorio de Almeida, A. L., and J. S. Campari. 1995. Sustainable Settlement in the Brazilian Amazon. Oxford University Press, New York. p. 189. 

Marengo, J., Liebmann, B. Kousky, V., Filizola, N., Wainer I, 2001a. "On the onset and end of the rainy season in the Brazilian Amazon Basin." Journal of Climate, 14 833-852. 

Brown, S., and E. Lugo. 1992. Above-ground biomass estimates for tropical moist forests of the Brazilian Amazon. Interciencia 17 8-16. 

Dias, A. C. C. P., and S. Nortcliff. 1985. "Effects of two land clearing methods on the physical properties of an Oxisol in the Brazilian Amazon." Tiopical Agriculture. 62 207-212. 

B. J. FeigI, and C. C. Cerri. 1995. "Nitrogen dynamics in soils of forests and active pastures in the western Brazilian Amazon basin." Soil Biology and Biochemistry. 27 1167-1175. 

Neill, C., J. M. Melillo, P. A. Steudler, C. C. Cerri, J. F. L. de Moreaes, M. C. Piccolo, and M. Brito. 1997. "Soil carbon and nitrogen stocks following forest clearing for pasture in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon. Ecological Applications 7 1216-1225. 

Piccolo, M. C., C. Neill, and C. C. Cerri. 1994. "Natural abundance of 15N in soils along forest-to-pasture chronosequences in the water Brazilian Amazon basin." Oecologia 99 112-117. 

In spite of the lessons from Jari, other large scale plantation development plans continue in the Brazilian Amazon. If developed, the Grande Carajas Program would consume large areas of tropical forest in the eastern Amazon in order to obtain charcoal for the smelting of pig-iron from the Carajas mines. The area of Eucalyptus plantation to produce the required amount of charcoal would be over 700,000 ha-more than 10 times the area of E. deglupta already cultivated in the Jari Project (Feamside 1989). 

Silva, N. M, and Uhl, C. 1992. Forest management for timber production A sustainable use for the Brazilian Amazon. Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciencias 64 (suppl. 1) 89-95. 

Campbell, C. 1996. Forest, field and factory changing livelihood strategies in two extractive reserves in the Brazilian Amazon. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Florida, Gainesville. 

Kauffman, J. B., D. L. Cummings, D. W. Ward, and R. Babbitt. 1995. Fire in the Brazilian Amazon. 1. Biomass, nutrient pools, and losses in slashed primary forests. Oecologia 104 397-408. 

Alves, D. S., J. V. Soares, S. Amaral, E. M. Mello, S. A. Almeida, O. F. Da Silva, and A. M. Silveiia. 1997. Biomass of primary and secondary vegetation in Rondonia, Western Brazilian Amazon. Global Change Biology 3 451-461. 

Sioli, H. 1973. Recent human activities in the Brazilian Amazon region and their ecological effects, In Tropical Forest Ecosystems in Africa and South America A Comparative Review, eds. B. J. Meggats, E. S. Ayensu, and W. D. Duckworth (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.), pp. 321-24. 

Brazilian Amazon basin was calculated for each soil type by multiplying the mean C stocks by the area of each soil type from a digitized soil map at scale 1 5,000,000 (Empresa Brasileira de pesquisa Agropecuaria, 1981). The authors determined that 47 Pg of carbon is stocked in the first soil meter, of which 44% is in the upper 20 cm. Cerri et al. (2000) also showed that if the standard deviation is used for evaluating the accuracy of estimates, the associated error would be 11.6 Pg of carbon, i.e. 24.5% of the mean value. The use of means is subject to caution, even more when the number of samples is reduced. As the sample size for most of the soil types is less than 30, outlying values may have a marked influence on the mean. The calculation with the median values, because it is less sensitive to extreme values. 

Moraes et al. (1995) neglerted the volume of the soil fraction superior to 2 mm. Using a soil dataset made up with soil profile descriptions in Rondonia (Occidental Brazilian Amazon) we calculated that considering the > 2 mm fraction would decrease carbon stocks (at Im... 

More recently Bemoux (1998), Bemoux et al. (1998b) and Cerri et al. (2(XX)) studied an area of 334,000 km of the western Brazilian Amazon basin. These authors applied a first correction assuming that the soil fraction > 2 mm is carbon ftee. Soil bulk densities were often lacking in previous studies, and soil carbon content not always determined for several horizons. Bemoux (1998) proposed several methods to estimate the missing information. 

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