permaculture

[Jennifer Nazak <jnazak@yahoo.com>]

Dear Florida permies (and any other permie folk who might be interested!),

In case you haven't already heard about it, I wanted to let you know about 
the FIRST annual Florida Permaculture Convergence, coming up January 11 
through 13 in central Florida. Use this link to find out more and to register:
http://www.flpermacultureconvergence.com/

All the best to you! I look forward to meeting up with you in the new year.

cheers,

jenny Nazak
graphic artist, writer & permaculturist
based in Ormond Beach FL 
www.jennynazak.com
 
*******
Permaculture: a skill-set so practical and so much needed in the world right 
now, you might even call it universal vocational training!

Austin Permaculture Guild's Winter/Spring 2013 Permaculture Design 
Certificate course 
still has spots open! www.austinperm.com
>From lfljvenaura@gmail.com  Wed Dec 26 18:24:19 2012
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Subject: [permaculture] Researchers: Amazon deforestation is devastating
 microbial communities | Science Recorder
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http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/researchers-amazon-deforestation-is-devastating-microbial-communities/
Researchers: Amazon deforestation is devastating microbial communities
*Science Recorder* | James Fluere | Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have uncovered
evidence that suggests that Amazon deforestation is devastating microbial
communities.

“We found that after rainforest conversion to agricultural pastures,
bacterial communities were significantly different from those of forest
soils,” says Klaus Nüsslein of UMass. “Not only did the pasture soils 
show
increased species numbers, these species were also less related to one
another than in rainforest soil. This is important because the combination
of lost forest species and the homogenization of pasture communities
together signal that this ecosystem is now a lot less capable of dealing
with additional outside stress.”

Mr. Nüsslein and his colleagues note that these microbial communities,
currently being devastated by Amazon deforestation, have a large role to
play in a functioning ecosystem.

The researchers examined a big farm site over the past four years in
Rondonia, Brazil, where farmers push agriculture into virgin rainforest to
convert rainforest to agricultural use. They confirmed previous research
revealing that bacteria in the soil became more diverse after conversion to
pasture. However, in its final year, their study showed that changes in
microbial diversity took place over larger geographic scales.

The study’s findings, however, do not support previous study inclusions,
instead they suggest that the loss of restricted ranges for different
bacteria communities leads to a biotic homogenization and net loss of
diversity overall. Researchers are very concerned that the loss of genetic
variation in bacteria across a forest converted to agricultural use could
negatively impact ecosystem resilience. Researchers hope that their data
will provide valuable information to those deciding the fate of the Amazon
rainforest.

“We have known for a long time that conversion of rainforest land in the
Amazon for agriculture results in a loss of biodiversity in plants and
animals,” biologist and first author Jorge Rodrigues of the University of
Texas at Arlington says. “Now we know that microbial communities which are
so important to the ecosystem also suffer significant losses.”

Researchers note that the Amazon contains fifty percent of the world’s
rainforest and is home to 33 percent of Earth’s species. Unfortunately, the
Amazon has one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation. While
agriculture is essential to Brazil’s economy, researchers contend that the
issue of Amazon deforestation must be tackled despite the economic and
political obstacles that often block viable solutions.

According to a *New York Times* article from November, the “surging
population growth of cities” is stressing the resources of the
Amazon. “More population leads to more deforestation,” Philip M. 
Fearnside,
a researcher at the National Institute for Amazon Research in Manaus, told
the newspaper.

The researchers are conducting further studies to determine the potential
for recovery of the microbial diversity after pastureland is no longer
occupied and becomes “secondary forest.” Mr. Nüsslein and his colleagues
are also looking into “how the redundancy of functions provided by soil
microbes provides resilience to the effects of agricultural land use change
to support a stressed ecosystem to recover stability.”

“Whether bacterial diversity will completely recover from ecosystem
conversion will depend in part on whether the taxa lost due to conversion
are truly locally extinct or whether they are present in the pasture sites
but of such low abundance that they are undetectable in our study,” the
authors write in their study.

The study’s findings are described in detail in the journal *Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences*