ABSTRACT Latin America embodies countries of special interest for ecological studies, given that areas with great value for biodiversity are located within their territories. This highlights the importance of an evaluation of ecological research in the Latin America region. We assessed the scientific participation of Latin American researchers in ecological journals, patterns of international collaboration, and defined the main characteristics of the articles. Although Latin American publications have increased in fourteen years, they accounted up to 9% of publications in Ecology. Brazil leaded the scientific production in Latin America, followed by Argentina and Mexico. In general, Latin American articles represented a low percentage of most journals total publication, with particularly low expression in high impact-factor journals. A half of the Latin American publications had international collaboration. Articles with more than five authors and with international collaboration were the most cited. Descriptive studies, mainly based in old theories, are still majority, suggesting that Ecology is in a developing stage in Latin America.

Um dos principais objetivos de monitorar as florações de cianobactérias em ambientes aquáticos é revelar a relação entre a abundância de cianobactérias e as variáveis ambientais. Esses estudos tipicamente correlacionam dados coletados simultaneamente. No entanto, as amostragens ocorrem esparsamente ao longo do tempo e não são capazes de revelar respostas de curto prazo na abundância de cianobactérias frente às mudanças ambientais. Neste estudo, testamos a hipótese de que relações mais fortes entre cianobactérias e variáveis ambientais no monitoramento de cianobactérias são encontradas quando a variabilidade temporal dos pontos de amostragem é incorporada nas análises estatísticas. Para isso, nós investigamos as relações entre cianobactérias e sete variáveis ambientais que foram amostradas duas vezes por ano, durante três anos, em 11 reservatórios, e dados de um monitoramento intensivo em um desses reservatórios. Relações fracas foram encontradas correlacionando dados coletados simultaneamente. De fato, o papel "altamente recorrente" do fósforo nas florações de cianobactérias não foi devidamente observado em todos os períodos de amostragem. Por outro lado, coeficientes de correlação mais fortes entre fósforo total e cianobactérias foram observados quando usamos a variabilidade dos pontos de amostragem. Nós também mostramos que as variáveis ambientais explicam melhor a densidade de cianobactérias quando um atraso é considerado. Nós concluímos que, no monitoramento de cianobactérias, a melhor abordagem para revelar os determinantes das florações de cianobactérias é considerar a variabilidade ambiental.

One of the main goals of monitoring cyanobacteria blooms in aquatic environments is to reveal the relationship between cyanobacterial abundance and environmental variables. Studies typically correlate data that were simultaneously sampled. However, samplings occur sparsely over time and may not reveal the short-term responses of cyanobacterial abundance to environmental changes. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that stronger cyanobacteria x environment relationships in monitoring are found when the temporal variability of sampling points is incorporated in the statistical analyses. To this end, we investigated relationships between cyanobacteria and seven environmental variables that were sampled twice yearly for three years across 11 reservoirs, and data from an intensive monitoring in one of these reservoirs. Poor correlations were obtained when correlating data simultaneously sampled. In fact, the 'highly recurrent' role of phosphorus in cyanobacteria blooms is not properly observed in all sampling periods. On the other hand, the strongest correlation values for the total phosphorus x cyanobacteria relationship were observed when we used the variation of sampling points. We have also shown that environment variables better explain cyanobacteria when a time lag is considered. We conclude that, in cyanobacteria monitoring, the best approach to reveal determinants of cyanobacteria blooms is to consider environmental variability.