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Due to the pandemic of COVID-19 and the need for social isolation, following World Health Organization guidelines, teaching activities began to be offered remotely in educational institutions. This study aimed to report the opinion of Biological Sciences undergraduate students from a public Brazilian university about the discipline Pedagogical Practice, developed in the remote format, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a qualitative-quantitative study, of the opinion poll type, with 17 students as public. The students' opinion was collected through an evaluative activity applied at the end of the course Pedagogical Practice online through Google Forms in the year 2021. Among some results, the students mentioned the decrease in the quality of the subject taught remotely, problems and difficulties in accessing the internet, with slow or unstable connections; the absence of face-to-face practical classes that makes it impossible to contact and socialize with teachers and classmates, and the overload and difficult concentration during this period.

Jair Bolsonaro’s victory is likely to further reduce investments in several of Brazil’s strategic sectors, such as education and other important departments concerning the development of the nation and the quality of life of Brazilians, as these are not the priority issues for his government (Editorial 2018). The prioritization and maintenance of existing investments in strategic institutions, particularly in Brazilian universities, is important to promote the development of the nation, because almost all research produced in the country is performed in these institutions (ABC 2019). Such research includes the studies aimed, for example, at preserving the environment and combating the use of pesticides. The reduction in financial resources allocated to the two federal environmental agencies, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), is of particular significance when considering environmental issues. It should be considered a threat to nature, and especially to the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, which has been affected by deforestation and biodiversity decline for years. Many Brazilian scientists estimate that almost 7,000 km2 of the Amazon had been deforested by 2017 (Tollefson 2018), which can further increase deforestation in this region, as it happened in 2019. That is, according to the data from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE 2019), deforestation in the Amazon region due to fires and the acceleration of mining activities increased by 29.54% in 2019, a significant rise compared to 2018 (Brazilian National Institute for Space Research 2019). Natural resources and ecosystems in Brazil continue to disappear, and getting support from the universities, development agencies, research institutes and indigenous communities at this time is of crucial importance.

Microbial lipases are prominent biocatalysts able to catalyze a wide variety of reactions in aqueous and nonaqueous media. In this work, filamentous fungi isolated from leaves decomposed in an aquatic environment were screened for lipase production with hydrolytic activity and esterification. Agar plates with Tween 20 and Rhodamine B were used for selection, while submerged cultures with olive oil were subsequently used to select 38 filamentous fungi. Trichoderma harzianum, Fusarium solani, Trichoderma harzianum F5, and Penicillium sp. F36 were grown in six different culture media. F. solani presented the highest lipase production (2.37 U/mL) with esterification activity of 0.07 U/mL using medium composed of (g.L−1) KH2PO4 1.00, MgSO4 H2O 1.123, and CuSO4 0.06. Supplementation of this culture medium with organic nitrogen sources increased lipase production by 461.3% using tryptone and by 419.4% using yeast extract. Among the vegetable oils from the Amazon region, degummed cotton oil induced lipase production up to 8.14 U/mL. The lipase produced by F. solani F61 has great potential to application in conventional processes and biodiesel production by transesterification of vegetable oils, as well as food industries in the production of fatty acid esters by hydrolysis and esterification.

β-fructofuranosidase (invertase) andβ-D-fructosyltransferase (FTase) are enzymes used in industrial processes to hydrolyze sucrose aiming to produce inverted sugar syrup or fructooligosaccharides. In this work, a blackAspergillussp. PC-4 was selected among six filamentous fungi isolated from canned peach syrup which were initially screened for invertase production. Cultivations with pure carbon sources showed that invertase and FTase were produced from glucose and sucrose, but high levels were also obtained from raffinose and inulin. Pineapple crown was the best complex carbon source for invertase (6.71 U/mL after 3 days of cultivation) and FTase production (14.60 U/mL after 5 days of cultivation). Yeast extract and ammonium chloride nitrogen sources provided higher production of invertase (6.80 U/mL and 6.30 U/mL, respectively), whereas ammonium nitrate and soybean protein were the best nitrogen sources for FTase production (24.00 U/mL and 24.90 U/mL, respectively). Fermentation parameters for invertase using yeast extract wereYP/S= 536.85 U/g andPP= 1.49 U/g/h. FTase production showed values ofYP/S= 2,627.93 U/g andPP= 4.4 U/h using soybean protein. The screening for best culture conditions showed an increase of invertase production values by 5.10-fold after 96 h cultivation compared to initial experiments (fungi bioprospection), while FTase production increased by 14.60-fold (44.40 U/mL) after 168 h cultivation.A. carbonariusPC-4 is a new promising strain for invertase and FTase production from low cost carbon sources, whose synthesized enzymes are suitable for the production of inverted sugar, fructose syrups, and fructooligosaccharides.

Background The turtles are usually associated with low substitution of individuals in the population because they have longer life than any other vertebrates. The order Testudines or Chelonia, the oldest among all vertebrates, comprising the turtles, terrestrial, marine and freshwater. These have as main characteristics, low growth rates and long periods required for mature, causing many turtles are vulnerable to extinction. Like other turtles, P. unifilis, popularly known as tracaja, leaves long-lived animals with late sexual maturity, characterized by a small mortality of adult animals, but high mortality rate of embryos and hatchlings, with natural predation as one of the most important factors of low hatching success of these species. This species is one of the most important representatives of the fauna of the Amazon turtle, but their eggs, meat and offal provide food for local communities, and have their hooves used as adornment and household items. The implementation of large hydropower enterprise cause many environmental damage. The scientific emphasis in EIA/RIMA should be held primarily in the study of special targets, and should take into account the genetic structure of populations. Mitochondrial molecular markers have particular maternal characteristics and high rates variation, which allow us to analyze the behavior of populations. The deployment of hydropower modifies the natural habitat of the turtles, which have difficulty in adapting. This work aimed to study the genetic structure of populations of P. unifilis analyzing the behavior of females in conditions of ambient modified by Tucurui, and Antonina-PA and Xambioa-TO, where will be built the dam of Santa Isabel. Methods We performed the sequencing of fragments of the control region of mitochondrial DNA, generating data of gene diversity and nucleotide, numbers of haplotypes and segregating sites, AMOVA, levels of structuring by pairwise comparison of FST and Mantel test in ARLEQUIN program. Clades were grouped checked by software Treefinder and the haplotype tree was held at hapview software.