Abstract Research on environmental perception is essential for the understanding of individuals’ relations and expectations towards natural environments. Here, we evaluated the perception of high school students on exotic and native species in Brazil. We interviewed 371 students from two high schools located in the state of Goiás, one with and one without a protected area within its premises. Students needed to identify native and exotic species and to indicate species origin. We used a t-test to evaluate differences between students’ scores regarding the correctness of species origin and also ANOVA to assess whether these scores varied among taxonomic groups. Students identified exotic species better than native ones. Students better identified exotic mammals, fishes, and birds than native ones. We found there were no significant relationships of students’ knowledge of species’ origins with socioecological factors. Students’ perceptions of exotic and native species were low and focused on charismatic large-bodied species. We suggest that students are encouraged to expand their knowledge of local biodiversity. Teachers, local schools, and policymakers are essential to achieve this aim. A more diverse methodology for teaching, including new technologies and citizen-science projects, can help establish a genuine interest of local biodiversity students.

ABSTRACT The development of effective monitoring tools depends on finding sensitive metrics that are capable of detecting the most important environmental impacts at a given region. We assessed if metrics derived from stream fish assemblages reflect physical habitat degradation and changes in land cover. We sampled the ichthyofauna and environmental characteristics of 16 stream sites of first and second order in the Upper Tocantins River basin. The streams were classified according to their environmental characteristics into reference (n = 5), intermediate (n = 4), and impacted (n = 7). A total of 4,079 individuals in five orders, 12 families, and 30 species were collected. Of the 20 metrics tested, eight were non-collinear and were tested for their performance in discriminating among groups of streams. Three metrics were sensitive to the gradient of degradation: Berger-Parker dominance index, percentage of characiform fish, and percentage of rheophilic individuals. Some commonly used metrics did not reflect the disturbances and many others were redundant with those that did. These results indicate that the metrics derived from fish assemblages may be informative for identifying the conservation status of streams, with the potential to be used in biomonitoring.

A diversidade taxonômica da comunidade de Chironomidae em ambientes aquáticos poluídos e não-poluídos foi estudada na área de influência do Distrito Agroindustrial de Anápolis, Anápolis, GO, avaliando-se a distribuição lognormal como indicador da integridade biótica desses sistemas. Larvas de Chironomidae foram coletadas em três pontos a montante e jusante do lançamento do efluente da estação de tratamento de esgoto desse distrito industrial. O ajuste do modelo de distribuição foi realizado utilizando-se o modelo de regressão não-linear, adotando procedimento iterativo quasi-Newton. Foram amostrados 21.498 indivíduos de 24 gêneros de Chironomidae. Chironomus, Polypedilum, Rheotanytarsus e Thienemanniella foram os mais abundantes, visto que são geralmente considerados resistentes à poluição orgânica. A assembléia do ponto a montante do lançamento foi bem descrita pelo modelo de distribuição lognormal truncada. O grande aumento da abundância de alguns gêneros no primeiro ponto a jusante impossibilitou o ajuste da distribuição lognormal truncada. O segundo a jusante, no entanto, possibilitou bom ajuste, possivelmente devido à diminuição na abundância dos grupos dominantes. Esses dados corroboram a hipótese de que as assembléias de chironomideos em ambientes não alterados são bem descritas por uma distribuição lognormal, o que não pode ser observado em ambientes degradados. Desta forma, evidenciou-se que a poluição orgânica causa desestruturação das comunidades aquáticas desse sistema, com perda das espécies sensíveis e dominância das tolerantes a esse tipo de impacto. Além disso, fica evidente que a distribuição lognormal pode ser considerada uma valiosa abordagem para avaliação de impactos ambientais.

In this study we determined the taxonomic diversity of larval Chironomidae upstream and downstream to discharges of the sewage treatment plant (STP) from Agro-industrial District of Anápolis, State of Goiás, Brazil. Additionally, we evaluated the use of the lognormal distribution as a measure of biotic integrity of this system. The Chironomidae communities were sampled in three sites, upstream and downstream of the discharge of the sewage treatment plant (STP). We fitted the truncate lognormal distribution based on a nonlinear regression of the datasets using least squares as loss function in an iterative quasi-Newton procedure. The total of 21,498 individuals were sampled, from 24 Chironomidae genera, Chironomus, Polypedilum, Rheotanytarsus e Thienemanniella, with 73.9%, 14.4%, 7.1% and 4.5%, respectively, of all analyzed community; they are generally considered resistant to organic pollution. The assemblage of the site upstream was described for a truncate lognormal distribution. The extreme increase in abundance of some genera in the first site downstream produced a distribution not fitted to lognormal. The second site downstream however, permits a good fit to lognormal, probably due to the decrease in abundance of the dominant groups. These data substantiate the hypothesis that Chironomidae community is not suitably characterized by lognormal distribution at disturbed environments. Consequently, these aquatic communities were ecological disordered by organic pollution which caused the lost of sensible species and the dominance of those tolerants to this sort of impact. Additionally, the study highlighted the distribution lognormal approach as a valuable method to assess environmental impacts.