Pará
Pará is a state in northern Brazil traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Mato Grosso and Roraima. To the northwest it borders Suriname; the capital and largest city is Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon at the Atlantic Ocean and the 11th most populous city in the country. Pará is the most populous state of the northern region, with a population of over 7.5 million, being the ninth-most populous state in Brazil. It is the second-largest state of Brazil in area, with 1.2 million km², second only to Amazonas upriver. Its most famous icons are the Amazon Rainforest. Pará produces rubber, tropical hardwoods such as mahogany, minerals such as iron ore and bauxite. A new commodity crop is cultivated in the region of Santarém; every October, Belém receives tens of thousands of tourists for the year's most important religious celebration: the procession of the Círio de Nazaré. Another important attraction of the capital is the Marajó-style ceramics, based on pottery from the extinct Marajó indigenous culture, on an island in the Amazon River.
These designs have gained increased international awareness. Toponym of the word pará has its origin in the Tupi language and means "river-sea"; the state's name comes from the river of the same name. In 1500, the Spanish navigator Vicente Yañez Pinzón was the first European to navigate the mouth of the Amazon River. On 26 August 1542, the Spaniard Francisco de Orellana reached the mouth of the Amazon River, waterway by river from Quito, Ecuador. On 28 October 1637, the Portuguese Pedro Teixeira left Belem and went to Quito: during the expedition, he placed a landmark in the confluence of the Napo and Aguarico, in the current border between Ecuador and Peru, to Portugal, to Brazil, getting the possession of most of the Amazon, including all of the current territory of Pará. Archaeologists divide the ancient inhabitants of prehistory Brazil into groups according to their way of life and tools: hunter-gatherers of the coast and farmers; these groups were subsequently named by European settlers as "Indians".
There are archaeological records proving the human presence in Brazil and the region of Santarém since 3000 BC. Marajó people lived in farmer's houses 3,500 years ago; these people knew ceramics, natural medicinal compounds. Their culture remains in Marajoara pottery, which has peculiar decoration; the period from 500 to 1300 was the height of the Marajoara culture. The region of the Amazon valley, by the Treaty of Tordesillas, was in possession of the Spanish Crown, the Portuguese expeditionaries, with the purpose of consolidating the region as Portuguese territory, founded the Fort of the Nativity in 1616, in what was called Santa Maria de Belém do Grão-Pará; the building was the first of the model on Amazon and the most significant in the Amazon territory until 1660. Despite the construction of fort, the occupation of territory was marked by early Dutch and English incursions in search of spices, hence the need of the Portuguese to fortify the area. In the 17th century, the region, integrated into the captaincy of Maranhão, was prosperous with crops and livestock.
In 1616 the captaincy of Grão-Pará was created, belonging to the Portuguese colonial state of Maranhão. In the same year the state of Grão-Pará and Maranhão transferred capital to Belem and attaching the captaincy of Rio Negro in 1755 by creating the State of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro. In 1751, with the expansion to the west, the colonial state of Grão-Pará, which besides the captaincy of Grão Pará would host the captaincy of São José do Rio Negro. In 1823, the Pará decided to join the independent Brazil, separated during the colonial period, reporting directly to Lisbon. However, political infighting continued; the most important of them, the Cabanagem, decreed the independence of the province of Pará. This was, along with the revolution Farroupilha, Rio Grande do Sul, the only to lift the regency period when the power was taken. Cabanagem was the only revolt led by the popular strata. Cabanagem, a popular and social revolt during the Empire of Brazil, in the Amazon region, was influenced by the French Revolution.
It was due to extreme poverty and disease that devastated the Amazon at the beginning of the period, in the former province of Grão-Pará, which included the current Amazonian states of Pará, Amapá, Roraima and Rondônia. The revolt spread from 1835 until January 1840, due to the process of independence of Brazil, which did not occur in the province due to political irrelevance to which the region was relegated by Prince Regent Pedro I. After independence, the strong Portuguese influence remained stable, giving political irrelevance in this province to the Brazilian central government. Indians and mestizos, all named cabanos, teamed against the Regent Government and rebelled, to increase the importance of the region in Brazil's central government addressing the issue of poverty as one of the reasons. All lived in mud huts. At the bottom of the rebellion, there was a mobilization of the Brazilian Empire against the reactionary forces of the province of Grão-Pará in expelling the insurgents who wanted to keep the region as a Portuguese colo
Soure, Pará
Soure is a Brazilian municipality located in the northern state of Pará, on the island of Marajó, located in the Amazon River at its mouth. Its population as of 2008 is estimated to be 22,244 people; the area of the municipality is 3,512.863 km². The city belongs to the microregion of Arari; the municipality is contained in the 59,985 square kilometres Marajó Archipelago Environmental Protection Area, a sustainable use conservation unit established in 1989 to protect the environment of the delta region. It contains the 27,464 hectares Soure Marine Extractive Reserve, a sustainable use conservation area created in 2001 that protects the coastal mangroves to the north of the municipal seat and along the north part of the Paracauari River. Soure has a tropical monsoon climate, with different amounts of precipitation depending on the season
Water buffalo
The water buffalo or domestic water buffalo is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, China. Today, it is found in Europe, North America, South America and some African countries; the wild water buffalo native to Southeast Asia is considered a different species, but most represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo. Two extant types of domestic water buffalo are recognized based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans and Italy, the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east; the origins of the domestic water buffalo types are debated, although results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the swamp type may have originated in China and was domesticated about 4,000 years ago, while the river type may have originated in India and was domesticated about 5,000 years ago. Water buffalo were traded from the Indus Valley Civilisation to Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, 2500 BC by the Meluhhas.
The seal of a scribe employed by an Akkadian king shows the sacrifice of water buffalo. At least 130 million domestic water buffalo exist, more people depend on them than on any other domestic animal, they are suitable for tilling rice fields, their milk is richer in fat and protein than that of dairy cattle. A large feral population became established in northern Australia in the late 19th century, there are smaller feral herds in Papua New Guinea and northeastern Argentina. Feral herds are present in New Britain, New Ireland, Irian Jaya, Guyana, Suriname and Uruguay; the skin of river buffalo is black. Swamp buffalo become slate blue later. Albinoids are present in some populations. River buffalo have comparatively longer faces, smaller girths, bigger limbs than swamp buffalo, their dorsal ridges extend further taper off more gradually. Their horns grow downward and backward curve upward in a spiral. Swamp buffalo are stockily built; the forehead is flat, the eyes prominent, the face short, the muzzle wide.
The neck is comparatively long, the withers and croup are prominent. A dorsal ridge ends abruptly just before the end of the chest, their horns grow outward, curve in a semicircle, but always remain more or less on the plane of the forehead. The tail is short, reaching only to the hocks. Height at withers is 129–133 cm for males, 120–127 cm for females, they range in weight from 300–550 kg, but weights of over 1,000 kg have been observed. Tedong bonga is a black pied buffalo featuring a unique black and white colouration, favoured by the Toraja of Sulawesi; the swamp buffalo has 48 chromosomes. The two types do not interbreed, but fertile offspring can occur. Buffalo-cattle hybrids have not been observed to occur, but the embryos of such hybrids reach maturity in laboratory experiments, albeit at lower rates than non-hybrids; the rumen of the water buffalo has important differences from that of other ruminants. It contains a larger population of bacteria the cellulolytic bacteria, lower protozoa, higher fungi zoospores.
In addition, higher rumen ammonia nitrogen and higher pH have been found as compared to those in cattle. River buffalo prefer deep water. Swamp buffalo prefer to wallow in mudholes. During wallowing, they acquire a thick coating of mud. Both are well adapted to a hot and humid climate with temperatures ranging from 0 °C in the winter to 30 °C and greater in the summer. Water availability is important in hot climates, since they need wallows, rivers, or splashing water to assist in thermoregulation; some breeds are adapted to saline sandy terrain. Water buffalo thrive on many aquatic plants. During floods, they will graze submerged, raising their heads above the water and carrying quantities of edible plants. Water buffalo eat reeds, Arundo donax, a kind of Cyperaceae, Eichhornia crassipes, Juncaceae; some of these plants are of great value to local peoples. Others, such as E. crassipes, are a major problem in some tropical valleys and water buffalo may help to keep waterways clear. Green fodders are used for intensive milk production and for fattening.
Many fodder crops are chaffed, or pulped. Fodders include alfalfa, the leaves, stems or trimmings of banana, Mangelwurzel, Leucaena leucocephala and kenaf, oats, peanut, soybean, sugarcane and turnips. Citrus pulp and pineapple wastes have been fed safely to buffalo. In Egypt, whole sun-dried dates are fed to milk buffalo up to 25% of the standard feed mixture. Swamp buffalo become reproductive at an older age than river breeds. Young males in Egypt and Pakistan are first mated at about 3.0–3.5 years of age, but in Italy they may be used as early as 2 years of age. Successful mating behaviour may continue until the animal is 12 years or older. A good river male can impregnate 100 females in a year. A strong seasonal influence on mating occurs. Heat stress reduces libido. Although buffalo are polyoestrous, their reproductive efficiency shows wide variation throughout the year. Buffalo cows exhibit a distinct seasonal change in displaying oestrus, conception rate, calving rate; the age at first oestrus of heifers varies between breeds from 13–33 months, but mating at the first oestrus is infertile and deferred unti
Wet season
The monsoon season is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. The season lasts at least a month; the term "green season" is sometimes used as a euphemism by tourist authorities. Areas with wet seasons are dispersed across portions of the subtropics. Under the Köppen climate classification, for tropical climates, a wet season month is defined as a month where average precipitation is 60 millimetres or more. In contrast to areas with savanna climates and monsoon regimes, Mediterranean climates have wet winters and dry summers. Dry and rainy months are characteristic of tropical seasonal forests: in contrast to tropical rainforests, which do not have dry or wet seasons, since their rainfall is distributed throughout the year; some areas with pronounced rainy seasons will see a break in rainfall mid-season, when the intertropical convergence zone or monsoon trough moves to higher latitudes in the middle of the warm season. When the wet season occurs during a warm season, or summer, precipitation falls during the late afternoon and early evening.
In the wet season, air quality improves, fresh water quality improves, vegetation grows leading to crop yields late in the season. Rivers overflow their banks, some animals retreat to higher ground. Soil nutrients erosion increases; the incidence of malaria increases in areas where the rainy season coincides with high temperatures in tropical areas. Some animals have survival strategies for the wet season; the previous dry season leads to food shortages in the wet season, as the crops have yet to mature. In areas where the heavy rainfall is associated with a wind shift, the wet season is known as the monsoon. Rainfall in the wet season is due to daytime heating which leads to diurnal thunderstorm activity within a pre-existing moist airmass, so the rain falls in late afternoon and early evening in savannah and monsoon regions. Further, much of the total rainfall each day occurs in the first minutes of the downpour, before the storms mature into their stratiform stage. Most places have only one wet season, but areas of the tropics can have two wet seasons, because the monsoon trough, or Intertropical Convergence Zone, can pass over locations in the tropics twice per year.
However, since rain forests have rainfall spread evenly through the year, they do not have a wet season. It is different for places with a Mediterranean climate. In the western United States, during the cold season from September–May, extratropical cyclones from the Pacific Ocean move inland into the region due to a southward migration of the jet stream during the cold season; this shift in the jet stream brings much of the annual precipitation to the region, sometimes brings heavy rain and strong low pressure systems. The peninsula of Italy has weather similar to the western United States in this regard. Areas with a savanna climate in Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Ghana, Burkina Faso, Eritrea and Botswana have a distinct rainy season. Within the savanna climate regime and South Texas have a rainy season. Monsoon regions include the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, northern sections of Australia's North, Central America and southern Mexico, the Desert Southwest of the United States, southern Guyana, portions of northeast Brazil.
Northern Guyana has the other in early winter. In western Africa, there are two rainy seasons across southern sections, but only one across the north. Within the Mediterranean climate regime, the west coast of the United States and the Mediterranean coastline of Italy and Turkey experience a wet season in the winter months; the wet season in the Negev desert of Israel extends from October through May. At the boundary between the Mediterranean and monsoon climates lies the Sonoran desert, which receives the two rainy seasons associated with each climate regime; the wet season is known by many different local names throughout the world. For example, in Mexico it is known as "storm season". Different names are given to the various short "seasons" of the year by the Aboriginal tribes of Northern Australia: the wet season experienced there from December to March is called Gudjewg; the precise meaning of the word is disputed, although it is accepted to relate to the severe thunderstorms and abundant vegetation growth experienced at this time.
In tropical areas, when the monsoon arrives, high daytime high temperatures drop and overnight low temperatures increase, thus reducing diurnal temperature variation. During the wet season, a combination of heavy rainfall and, in some places such as Hong Kong, an onshore wind, improve air quality. In Brazil, the wet season is correlated with weaker trade winds off the ocean; the pH level of water becomes more balanced due to the charging of local aquifers during the wet season. Water softens, as the concentration of dissolved materials reduces during the rainy season. Erosion is increased during rainy periods. Arroyos that are dry at other times of the year fill with runoff, in some cases with water as deep as 10 feet. Leaching of soils during periods of heavy rainfall depletes nutrients; the higher runoff from land masses affects nearby ocean areas, which are more stratified, or less mixed, due to stronger surface currents forced by the heavy rainfall runoff. High rainfall can cause widespread flooding, which can lead to landslides and mudflows in mountainous areas.
Such floods cause rivers to submerge homes. The Ghaggar-Hakra River, which only flows during India's monsoon season, can flood and damage local
Invasive species
An invasive species is a species, not native to a specific location, that has a tendency to spread to a degree believed to cause damage to the environment, human economy or human health. The criteria for invasive species has been controversial, as divergent perceptions exist among researchers as well as concerns with the subjectivity of the term "invasive". Several alternate usages of the term have been proposed; the term as most used applies to introduced species that adversely affect the habitats and bioregions they invade economically, environmentally, or ecologically. Such invasive species may be either plants or animals and may disrupt by dominating a region, wilderness areas, particular habitats, or wildland–urban interface land from loss of natural controls; this includes non-native invasive plant species labeled as exotic pest plants and invasive exotics growing in native plant communities. It has been used in this sense by government organizations as well as conservation groups such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the California Native Plant Society.
The European Union defines "Invasive Alien Species" as those that are, outside their natural distribution area, secondly, threaten biological diversity. The term is used by land managers, researchers, horticulturalists and the public for noxious weeds; the kudzu vine, Andean pampas grass, yellow starthistle are examples. An alternate usage broadens the term to include indigenous or "native" species along with non-native species, that have colonized natural areas. Deer are an example, considered to be overpopulating their native zones and adjacent suburban gardens, by some in the Northeastern and Pacific Coast regions of the United States. Sometimes the term is used to describe a non-native or introduced species that has become widespread. However, not every introduced. A nonadverse example is the common goldfish, found throughout the United States, but achieves high densities. Notable examples of invasive species include European rabbits, grey squirrels, domestic cats and ferrets. Dispersal and subsequent proliferation of species is not an anthropogenic phenomenon.
There are many mechanisms by which species from all Kingdoms have been able to travel across continents in short periods of time such as via floating rafts, or on wind currents. Charles Darwin, a British naturalist, performed many experiments to better understand long distance seed dispersal, was able to germinate seeds from insect frass, faeces of waterfowl, dirt clods on the feet of birds, all of which may have traveled significant distances under their own power, or be blown off course by thousands of miles. Invasion of long-established ecosystems by organisms from distant bio-regions is a natural phenomenon, accelerated via hominid-assisted migration although this has not been adequately directly measured; the definition of "native" is controversial in that there is no way to determine nativity. For example, the ancestors of Equus ferus evolved in North America and radiated to Eurasia before becoming locally extinct. Upon returning to North America in 1493 during their hominid-assisted migration, it is debatable as to whether they were native or exotic to the continent of their evolutionary ancestors.
Scientists include species and ecosystem factors among the mechanisms that, when combined, establish invasiveness in a newly introduced species. While all species compete to survive, invasive species appear to have specific traits or specific combinations of traits that allow them to outcompete native species. In some cases, the competition is about rates of reproduction. In other cases, species interact with each other more directly. Researchers disagree about the usefulness of traits as invasiveness markers. One study found that of a list of invasive and noninvasive species, 86% of the invasive species could be identified from the traits alone. Another study found invasive species tended to have only a small subset of the presumed traits and that many similar traits were found in noninvasive species, requiring other explanations. Common invasive species traits include the following: Fast growth Rapid reproduction High dispersal ability Phenotype plasticity Tolerance of a wide range of environmental conditions Ability to live off of a wide range of food types Association with humans Prior successful invasionsTypically, an introduced species must survive at low population densities before it becomes invasive in a new location.
At low population densities, it can be difficult for the introduced species to reproduce and maintain itself in a new location, so a species might reach a location multiple times before it becomes established. Repeated patterns of human movement, such as ships sailing to and from ports or cars driving up and down highways offer repeated opportunities for establishment. An introduced species might become invasive if it can outcompete native species for resources such as nutrients, physical space, water, or food. If these species evolved under great competition or predation the new environment may host fewer able competitors, allowing the invader to proliferate quickly. Ecosystems which are being used to their fullest capacity by native species can be modeled as zero-sum systems in which any gain for the invader is a loss for the native. However, su
Amazon River
The Amazon River in South America is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world, by some definitions it is the longest. The headwaters of the Apurímac River on Nevado Mismi had been considered for nearly a century as the Amazon's most distant source, until a 2014 study found it to be the headwaters of the Mantaro River on the Cordillera Rumi Cruz in Peru; the Mantaro and Apurímac join, with other tributaries form the Ucayali River, which in turn meets the Marañón River upstream of Iquitos, Peru, to form what countries other than Brazil consider to be the main stem of the Amazon. Brazilians call this section the Solimões River above its confluence with the Rio Negro to form what Brazilians call the Amazon at the Meeting of Waters at Manaus, the river's largest city. At an average discharge of about 209,000 cubic metres per second —approximately 6,591 cubic kilometres per annum, greater than the next seven largest independent rivers combined—the Amazon represents 20% of the global riverine discharge to the ocean.
The Amazon basin is the largest drainage basin in the world, with an area of 7,050,000 square kilometres. The portion of the river's drainage basin in Brazil alone is larger than any other river's basin; the Amazon enters Brazil with only one-fifth of the flow it discharges into the Atlantic Ocean, yet has a greater flow at this point than the discharge of any other river. The river was known by Europeans as the Marañón and the Peruvian part of the river is still known by that name today, it became known as the Rio Amazonas in Spanish and Portuguese, or The Amazon in English. The name Rio Amazonas was given after native warriors attacked a 16th-century expedition by Francisco de Orellana; the warriors were led by women, reminding de Orellana of the Amazon warriors, a tribe of women warriors related to Iranian Scythians and Sarmatians mentioned in Greek mythology. The word Amazon itself may be derived from the Iranian compound *ha-maz-an- " fighting together" or ethnonym *ha-mazan- "warriors", a word attested indirectly through a derivation, a denominal verb in Hesychius of Alexandria's gloss "ἁμαζακάραν· πολεμεῖν.
Πέρσαι", where it appears together with the Indo-Iranian root *kar- "make". During what many archaeologists call the formative stage, Amazonian societies were involved in the emergence of South America's highland agrarian systems; the trade with Andean civilisations in the terrains of the headwaters in the Andes, formed an essential contribution to the social and religious development of the higher altitude civilisations of among others the Muisca and Incas. Early human settlements were based on low-lying hills or mounds. Shell mounds were the earliest evidence of habitation, they are associated with ceramic age cultures. Artificial earth platforms for entire villages are the second type of mounds, they are best represented by the Marajoara culture. Figurative mounds are the most recent types of occupation. There is ample evidence that the areas surrounding the Amazon River were home to complex and large-scale indigenous societies chiefdoms who developed large towns and cities. Archaeologists estimate that by the time the Spanish conquistador De Orellana traveled across the Amazon in 1541, more than 3 million indigenous people lived around the Amazon.
These pre-Columbian settlements created developed civilizations. For instance, pre-Columbian indigenous people on the island of Marajó may have developed social stratification and supported a population of 100,000 people. In order to achieve this level of development, the indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest altered the forest's ecology by selective cultivation and the use of fire. Scientists argue that by burning areas of the forest repetitiously, the indigenous people caused the soil to become richer in nutrients; this created dark soil areas known as terra preta de índio. Because of the terra preta, indigenous communities were able to make land fertile and thus sustainable for the large-scale agriculture needed to support their large populations and complex social structures. Further research has hypothesized; some say that its effects on forest ecology and regional climate explain the otherwise inexplicable band of lower rainfall through the Amazon basin. Many indigenous tribes engaged in constant warfare.
James Stuart Olson wrote: "The Munduruku expansion dislocated and displaced the Kawahíb, breaking the tribe down into much smaller groups... first came to the attention of Europeans in 1770 when they began a series of widespread attacks on Brazilian settlements along the Amazon River." In March 1500, Spanish conquistador Vicente Yáñez Pinzón was the first documented European to sail up the Amazon River. Pinzón called the stream Río Santa María del Mar Dulce shortened to Mar Dulce sweet sea, because of its fresh water pushing out into the ocean. Another Spanish explorer, Francisco de Orellana, was the first European to travel from the origins of the upstream river basins, situated in the Andes, to the mouth of the river. In this journey, Orellana baptised some of the affluents of the Amazonas like Rio Negro and Jurua; the name Amazonas is taken from the native warriors that attacked this expedition women, that reminded De Orellana of the mythical female Amazon warriors from the
Ilha do Marajó travel guide from Wikivoyage
