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The Campos de Palmas Wildlife Refuge (CPWR) (Brazil) is a full protection Conservation Unit (CU) formed by private properties, where the use of land and natural resources are allowed sustainably according to the rules of the CU Management Plan. Inadequate practices of land use and occupation within this CU can affect its quality and the organisms that depend on them. Considering the above, the objective of the present study was to biomonitor different land uses and occupations within the CPWR and its surroundings, during the four seasons of a year, using the bioindicators Allium cepa (cytotoxicity and genotoxicity tests) and Eisenia fetida (leakage test). The soil samples were collected in areas of silviculture, agriculture, and native grasslands within the CU and agriculture outside the limits of the CPWR. The use by silviculture (spring) and native grassland (summer) showed cytotoxic effects for A. cepa. The use by agriculture outside the CPWR (spring) showed genotoxic effect and stimulation of mitotic cell division. For the animal bioindicator, the use by agriculture within the CPWR (winter), native grassland (autumn and spring), silviculture (autumn and spring), and agriculture outside the CU (spring) showed a toxic effect. A PCA analysis showed a correlation between the results of toxicity, cytotoxicity, and genotoxicity with the presence of macronutrients and metals in the evaluated soil samples. Possibly influenced by their soil composition characteristics (silviculture and native grassland) or the management of agricultural areas. In addition, samples from the rainy season (spring) showed higher ecotoxicity. These results show that biomonitoring through different organisms is important for evaluating environmental quality and indicate the need for the implementation of preventive measures in the CPWR to avoid the toxic, cytotoxic, and genotoxic effects found. They also ensure the integrity of this CU and the active protection of the environment and biodiversity., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Our objective was to describe and compare the diet of endemic anurans of the Atlantic Forest, as well as to evaluate the influence of biotic factors on the trophic ecology of the species. We conducted the study in Mananciais da Serra (Piraquara-PR), a transition region between mixed and dense ombrophilous forest, between January 2019 and February 2020. In this work, we describe the diet of eight species: Aplastodiscus albosignatus, Boana semiguttata, Bokermannohyla circumdata, Ischnocnema henselii, Leptodactylus notoaktites, Proceratophrys boiei, Rhinella abei and Scythrophrys sawayae. Coleoptera were important prey in the diet of most species, except for B. circumdata and L. notoaktites. All species showed potential selection for some category of prey. We observed a correlation between the size of the individuals and the volume of consumed prey in I. henselii. In general, the niche overlap between species was low, and most species had a broad trophic niche.

The Campos de Palmas Wildlife Refuge (RVS-CP) is a full protection conservation unit (CU) formed by private properties. The present study aimed to use the bioindicators Allium cepa L. (cytotoxicity and mutagenicity tests) and Eisenia fetida (avoidance test) to assess the quality of surface water of the Chopim River within the RVS-CP area and its surroundings during the four seasons of the year. To do so, water samples were collected at five points, four inside the RVS-CP area and a fifth point outside thereof. Samples from all sampling points had cytotoxic effect on A. cepa in at least one season of the year. Such a finding may be related to inadequate management practices (without land-use control) in the areas surrounding the sampling points such as forestry, native fields, pastures, agriculture, and housing areas. As for the animal bioindicator (E. fetida), only points 1 (in the winter) and 5 (in the autumn) were toxic. Concerning mutagenicity, points 1 and 4 (in the spring), 1 and 2 (in the summer), and 3 (in the autumn) showed mutagenic effect on A. cepa meristematic cells, therefore only within the RVS-CP area. Overall, these results show that biomonitoring can be an ally of the residents of the RVS-CP area in controlling management practices, aiming to bring together economic support and conservation of resources, especially water., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Background: In addition to physical, psychological and social effects, economic effects and the associated financial burden of a cancer diagnosis may also gain in importance during prolonged disease progression. Counselling by social services is an important factor in coping with this burden., Methods: People employed in social work in oncology were invited to participate in a survey. The survey comprises 16 items on the perception of financial burdens, changes in the relevance of the topic, risk factors and current counselling practice., Results: 81% of the respondents reported that the financial burden arising from a cancer diagnosis is a relevant topic of consultation for at least half of the patients. For 55%, this topic has become more important in recent years, which is due to higher survival rates, an increased number of younger patients, and poorer social security and working conditions., Discussion and Conclusion: Despite comprehensive insurance coverage, the financial burden of cancer patients has also gained in importance in Germany and must be increasingly taken into account in everyday social service counselling. Due to numerous risk factors and complex reasons, further measures are required to enable the early identification of risk constellations and to improve the situation of those affected., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier GmbH.)

Animals have a long history of assessing ecosystem responses to environmental disturbances, and amphibians stand out for presenting themselves as good animal model and bioindicators of environmental quality. The main purpose of the present work was to investigate the cellular effects of contamination of waters of the Marrecas River, located in the southwest of the state of Paraná, Brazil. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to investigate and monitor the cytotoxic and mutagenic effect, with bullfrog tadpoles, and to discuss these effects with land use along this hydrographic basin. Mutagenic effects were determined by micronucleus assay, and cytotoxicity by other nuclear changes, such as segmented cells, binucleated cells, cells with buds and reniform cells. Water samples were obtained at nine sites along the Marrecas River, covering areas with rural and urban hydrological contribution. For each site, four samples were collected, along the years 2017 and 2018, encompassing the four seasons (summer, autumn, winter, and spring). The results showed mutagenic and cytotoxic effect in four sampling sites, and only cytotoxic effect in other four sites. These effects may be due, possibly, to the use of different agrochemicals across the hydrographic basin region, which have predominant hydrological contributions from crops. Data of this study indicate the presence of cytotoxic and mutagenic contaminants in the waters of the Marrecas River, which can generate environmental problems on the river fauna/flora, and can also affect the local population health.

Phenotypic traits, such as the frog advertisement call, are generally correlated with interspecific genetic variation, and, as a consequence of strong sexual selection, these behaviors may carry a phylogenetic signal. However, variation in acoustic traits is not always correlated with genetic differences between populations (intraspecific variation); phenotypic plasticity and environmental variables may explain part of such variation. For example, local processes can affect acoustic properties in different lineages due to differences in physical structure, climatic conditions, and biotic interactions, particularly when populations are isolated. However, acoustic traits can be used to test phylogenetic hypotheses. We analyzed the advertisement calls of Dendropsophus elegans males from 18 sites and compared them with those of four closely related congeneric species, in order to test for differences between inter and intraspecific variation. We analyzed 451 calls of 45 males of these five species. Because males from distant sites were grouped together without population congruence, differences found in advertisement calls among individuals were not correlated with phylogeographical clades. Phylogenetic and cluster analyses of the D. elegans clades and those of closely related species grouped all five species into the same topology, as reported by previous molecular and morphological phylogenies. However, the topology of the D. elegans phylogeographical clades did not match the topology previously reported. Acoustic communication in D. elegans seems to be conserved among populations, and the phylogeographical history of the species does not explain the variation among lineages in call properties, despite some congruent phylogenetic signals evident at the species level. Based on molecular clocks retrieved from the literature, it seems that more than 6.5 million years of divergence (late Miocene) are necessary to allow significant changes to occur in the acoustic properties of these treefrog calls, making it possible to recover their phylogenetic history only based on acoustic evidence.

Species distributed across vast continental areas and across major biomes provide unique model systems for studies of biotic diversification, yet also constitute daunting financial, logistic and political challenges for data collection across such regions. The tree frog Dendropsophus minutus (Anura: Hylidae) is a nominal species, continentally distributed in South America, that may represent a complex of multiple species, each with a more limited distribution. To understand the spatial pattern of molecular diversity throughout the range of this species complex, we obtained DNA sequence data from two mitochondrial genes, cytochrome oxidase I (COI) and the 16S rhibosomal gene (16S) for 407 samples of D. minutus and closely related species distributed across eleven countries, effectively comprising the entire range of the group. We performed phylogenetic and spatially explicit phylogeographic analyses to assess the genetic structure of lineages and infer ancestral areas. We found 43 statistically supported, deep mitochondrial lineages, several of which may represent currently unrecognized distinct species. One major clade, containing 25 divergent lineages, includes samples from the type locality of D. minutus. We defined that clade as the D. minutus complex. The remaining lineages together with the D. minutus complex constitute the D. minutus species group. Historical analyses support an Amazonian origin for the D. minutus species group with a subsequent dispersal to eastern Brazil where the D. minutus complex originated. According to our dataset, a total of eight mtDNA lineages have ranges >100,000 km2. One of them occupies an area of almost one million km2 encompassing multiple biomes. Our results, at a spatial scale and resolution unprecedented for a Neotropical vertebrate, confirm that widespread amphibian species occur in lowland South America, yet at the same time a large proportion of cryptic diversity still remains to be discovered.