The Fundão dam failure: Iron ore tailing impact on marine benthic macrofauna.

The Fundão dam failure, the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, launched 50 million m3 of iron ore tailings mud through the Doce River, reaching the Atlantic Ocean. Generally, mine tailings increase the sediment inflow, leading to mud burial of epibenthic macrofauna, and the raise of metal(oid)s concentration causing macrofauna long-term changes. After almost four years, tailings mud was still spreading on the Doce River Shelf, while impacts on marine macrofauna were still unknown. Herein, the IMS index (a tracer of Fundão dam tailings mud), sediment variables, organic pollutants, and metal(oid)s were integrated to uncover the drives of macrofauna structure from Costas da Algas to Abrolhos bank MPAs. Tailings mud was present only in Doce River Mouth and Degredo, organic pollutants and metal(oid)s above safety levels were concentrated in those same areas. Tailings mud (IMS index) drastically reduced species richness and diversity, favoring the abundance of opportunistic species. Mud, IMS index and Al, Ba, and V, metal(oid)s linked to dam failure, structured macrofauna composition in this impacted area, dominated by resistant groups as Nuculidae, Spionidae, and Magelonidae. Conversely, an opposite pattern was found for further and deeper sites with high CaCO3 content and total nitrogen that also showed large grain size, in areas known to harbour biogenic structures, sustaining a macrofauna composition distinct from the impacted areas, dominated by Syllidae and Crassatellidae, sensitives to impacts. Macrofauna composition was most structured by sediment variables, followed by the intersection between metal(oid)s-IMS and Mud, both gradients acting almost entirely on a broad spatial scale. Benthic macrofauna at the Doce River Shelf is still impacted by Fundão dam tailings mud, even after almost four years of the disaster, and may continue to, since the influx of tailings does not stop, and sediment resuspension is a recurrent source for those impacts.

Knowledge of Brazilian benthic marine fauna throughout time.

The ecosystems of Brazil's continental shelf and oceanic islands comprise a variety of environments that display unique geomorphological and geophysical features and biotic components. The quest to attain knowledge of Brazilian marine fauna is hampered by coastline length, biodiversity, a high rate of endemism, and a shortage of specialized researchers. Based on a systematic bibliographic review, the article offers an overview of the history, current knowledge, and outlook for the field of marine biodiversity in Brazil. Our findings show that government initiatives have afforded greater knowledge of Brazilian marine fauna species and opened new perspectives, including reliance on complex tools to describe benthic marine habitats in terms of their geological, geophysical, and biotic composition.

O conhecimento da fauna marinha bentônica brasileira através dos tempos / Knowledge of Brazilian benthic marine fauna throughout time / Knowledge of Brazilian benthic marine fauna throughout time

Ambientes com características geomorfológicas, geofísicas e com organismos peculiares compõem os ecossistemas da plataforma continental e as ilhas oceânicas da costa brasileira. A extensão da costa, a biodiversidade, a alta taxa de endemismos e a escassez de especialistas dificultam o conhecimento da fauna marinha. Apresentamos o estado atual de conhecimento da biodiversidade marinha e as perspectivas para a área no Brasil, com base em revisão bibliográfica sistemática. Constatamos que iniciativas governamentais em diferentes âmbitos têm permitido maior conhecimento das espécies da fauna marinha brasileira, abrindo perspectivas que incluem o uso de ferramentas complexas na descrição dos habitats bentônicos marinhos quanto à sua composição geológica, geofísica e biótica.

The ecosystems of Brazil’s continental shelf and oceanic islands comprise a variety of environments that display unique geomorphological and geophysical features and biotic components. The quest to attain knowledge of Brazilian marine fauna is hampered by coastline length, biodiversity, a high rate of endemism, and a shortage of specialized researchers. Based on a systematic bibliographic review, the article offers an overview of the history, current knowledge, and outlook for the field of marine biodiversity in Brazil. Our findings show that government initiatives have afforded greater knowledge of Brazilian marine fauna species and opened new perspectives, including reliance on complex tools to describe benthic marine habitats in terms of their geological, geophysical, and biotic composition.

Physiologic and metagenomic attributes of the rhodoliths forming the largest CaCO3 bed in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Rhodoliths are free-living coralline algae (Rhodophyta, Corallinales) that are ecologically important for the functioning of marine environments. They form extensive beds distributed worldwide, providing a habitat and nursery for benthic organisms and space for fisheries, and are an important source of calcium carbonate. The Abrolhos Bank, off eastern Brazil, harbors the world's largest continuous rhodolith bed (of ∼21,000 km(2)) and has one of the largest marine CaCO3 deposits (producing 25 megatons of CaCO3 per year). Nevertheless, there is a lack of information about the microbial diversity, photosynthetic potential and ecological interactions within the rhodolith holobiont. Herein, we performed an ecophysiologic and metagenomic analysis of the Abrolhos rhodoliths to understand their microbial composition and functional components. Rhodoliths contained a specific microbiome that displayed a significant enrichment in aerobic ammonia-oxidizing betaproteobacteria and dissimilative sulfate-reducing deltaproteobacteria. We also observed a significant contribution of bacterial guilds (that is, photolithoautotrophs, anaerobic heterotrophs, sulfide oxidizers, anoxygenic phototrophs and methanogens) in the rhodolith metagenome, suggested to have important roles in biomineralization. The increased hits in aromatic compounds, fatty acid and secondary metabolism subsystems hint at an important chemically mediated interaction in which a functional job partition among eukaryal, archaeal and bacterial groups allows the rhodolith holobiont to thrive in the global ocean. High rates of photosynthesis were measured for Abrolhos rhodoliths (52.16 µmol carbon m(-2 )s(-1)), allowing the entire Abrolhos rhodolith bed to produce 5.65 × 10(5) tons C per day. This estimate illustrates the great importance of the Abrolhos rhodolith beds for dissolved carbon production in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Poluiçäo por metais pesados na bacia do rio Sapucaí-Mirim(nordeste do Estado de Säo Paulo, Brasil), pela indústria do couro / Heavy-metal polluition in basin of Sapucaí-Mmirim river (northeast of Säo Paulo State, Brazil), by hide industry

Contamination of the limnic environment is occuring at a fast rate all over the world due to the wide industrial expansion and, at the same time, to the lack of infrastructure for previous treatment of effluents that are dumped into fresh water sources, significantly contributing to the high rates of pollution affecting small and large rivers close to urban centers. The objective of the present study was to analyze the sediment and water of the Sapucaí-Mirim River, an important river in the Northeasten part of the State of Säo Paulo that receives industrial effluents from Franca and Säo Joaquim da Barra, where the major source of pollution is the leather industry which mainly uses Cr for tanning. In the present study we investigated the presence of the metals Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn at he sites where the Ribeiräo dos Bagres stream empties into the Sä Joaquim stream and the Sapucaí-Mirim River. High metal levels were detected in both regions, with no significant differences between them. The differences detected were loca, with the highest indices being found in the tributaries of the Sapucaí-Mirim River. The metals detected in the water were limited to Cr and Zn, with levels of the order of 0.006 ug/ml to 0.168 ug/ml Cr and 0.002 ug/ml to 0.033 ug/ml Zn. All the metals analyzed were detected in the sediment, with Cr and Zn again being present at highest concentrations. Cr ranged from 17.800ug/g to 242.425 ug/g and Zn ranged from 142.000 ug/g to 1024.000 ug/g. With respect to Cr, the contamination in the region studied was attributed to the leather industry for the manufacturing of shoes