The Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical of the University of Lisbon, which resulted from the recent merger (in 2015) of the former state laboratory Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical in the University of Lisbon, holds an important collection of bird skins from the Portuguese-speaking African Countries (Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde)...

The lower Miocene Pirabas Formation in the North of Brazil was deposited under influence of the proto-Amazon River and is characterized by large changes in the ecological niches from the early Miocene onwards. To evaluate these ecological changes, the elasmobranch fauna of the fully marine, carbonate-rich beds was investigated. A diverse fauna with 24 taxa of sharks and rays was identified with...

Alluvial gully erosion is a likely key sediment source into many large rivers in tropical Australia. This type of gullying differs fundamentally to the generally accepted gully model from Southern Australia, in that it is found exclusively within alluvium and can propagate entirely as a result of basal sapping. The process is found to varying degrees within alluvial river types along most Gulf ...

RATIONALE The Amazon River is a huge network of long tributaries, and little is known about the headwaters. Here we present a study of one wet tropical Amazon forest side, and one dry and cold Atiplano plateau, originating from the same cordillera. The aim is to see how this difference affects the water characteristics. METHODS Different kind of water (spring, lake, river, rainfall) were samp...

For centuries Amazonia has held the Western scientific and popular imagination as a primordial forest, only minimally impacted by small, simple and dispersed groups that inhabit the region. Studies in historical ecology refute this view. Rather than pristine tropical forest, some areas are better viewed as constructed or ‘domesticated’ landscapes, dramatically altered by indigenous groups in th...

The relations of decadal to multidecadal (D2M) variability in global sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) with D2M variability in the flow of the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) are examined for the years 19062003. Results indicate that D2M variability of SSTs in the North Atlantic, North Pacific, tropical Pacific, and Indian Oceans is associated with D2M variability of the UCRB. A principal compo...

The Sahara experienced several humid episodes during the late Quaternary, associated with the development of vast fluvial networks and enhanced freshwater delivery to the surrounding ocean margins. In particular, marine sediment records off Western Sahara indicate deposition of river-borne material at those times, implying sustained fluvial discharges along the West African margin. Today, howev...

In 2005, southwestern Amazonia experienced the effects of an intense drought that affected life and biodiversity. Several major tributaries as well as parts of the main river itself contained only a fraction of their normal volumes of water, and lakes were drying up. The consequences for local people, animals and the forest itself are impossible to estimate now, but they are likely to be seriou...

In India, freshwater aquatic resources are suffering from increasing human population, urbanization and shortage of all kind of natural resources like water. To mitigate this, all the major rivers have been planned for a river-interlinking through an interlinking canal system under a huge scheme; yet, the baseline information on ecological conditions of those tropical rivers and their fish comm...

In remote, tropical areas human influences increase, potentially threatening pristine seagrass systems. We aim (i) to provide a bench-mark for a near-pristine seagrass system in an archipelago in East Kalimantan, by quantifying a large spectrum of abiotic and biotic properties in seagrass meadows and (ii) to identify early warning indicators for river sediment and nutrient loading, by comparing...