Illustrated dioramas of the northeastern Atlantic Forest for the Arca do CEP project

• Grant number: 24/03594-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2024
• End date: June 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Ecosystems Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Hylio Laganá Fernandes
• Grantee: Eduardo Lira dos Santos
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Humanas e Biológicas (CCHB). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). Sorocaba , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 17/23548-2 - Evaluation, recovering and conservation of endangered animal species from the Pernambuco Centre of Endemism, AP.BTA.TEM

Abstract

The brazilian atlantic forest represents one of the most biodiverse terrestrial biomes on the planet and also, one of the most threatened by human activity, with only 8% of it's original coverage. In view of the human occupation history and it's impacts upon the Atlantic Forest, one species can be highlighted by for it's resilience and recent return from extinction: the Alagoas curassow (Pauxi mitu), one of the rarest birds in the world, endemic to the Alagoas Atlantic Forest and extinct in nature since 1980, survived thanks to reproduction programs in captivity that resulted in the releasement and reintroduction of the species in Alagoas in 2019, a pioneer event at the Americas. The situation of Pernambuco Center of Endemism (Centro de endemismo de Pernambuco - CEP), a name given to the excerpt of Atlantic Forest at north of São Francisco river, has been worrying researchers and environmental conservationists, once this region bears the biggest number of threatened taxons in this biome. Due to the peculiar characteristics of endemism of the Alagoas curassow, it has become the bird symbol of the state of Alagoas, also it became a flag species, which designates it as a symbol of environmental conservation. At this context, it was proposed the thematic project ARCA do CEP "Avaliação, Recuperação e Conservação da Fauna Ameaçada de Extinção do Centro de Endemismo Pernambuco'', whose objective is to better know and develop actions for the conservation of the region. In view of the work realized to preserve this biodiverse and threatened biome, this present project seeks to contribute to Scientific Divulgation of information collected from the researches of ARCA do CEP through the elaboration of two illustrations inspired by dioramas, that represents imagistically the impacts of human actions in this ecosystem, synthesizing de research data collected at the fragments of Atlantic Forest of CEP, with the objective of disclose to the population how the ecosystem has been affected by intense fragmentation. The diorama will represent two situations, one with the complete biome, showing the biodiversity of the atlantic forest, with lots of typical species at the same space being shown with multiple interactions, and the other showing an unbalanced environment, with less biodiversity and more abundance of some species, in a scenery of fragmentation. The potential of this material must be tested in informing, through an imagetical language the ecosystemic dynamics, presenting to the reader, always in the universe of images, consequences of the unbalance provoked by humans.