Trois scénarios d'évolution prospectifs pour le front pionnier de la réserve forestière de Ticoporo

International audienceDans le cadre d’une recherche d’aide à la décision pour l’aménagement régional, l’analyse des différents cheminements d’évolution empruntés par un front pionnier pastoral en domaine forestier tropical permet de présenter un modèle spatial du territoire de Ticoporo (piémont des Andesvénézueliennes). Ce dernier sert de référence pour envisager les modifications futures selon trois logiques prospectives

Shocked and Scorched: The Tail of a Tadpole in an Interstellar Pond

We report multi-wavelength observations of the far-infrared source IRAS 20324+4057, including high-resolution optical imaging with HST, and ground-based near-infrared, millimeter-wave and radio observations. These data show an extended, limb-brightened, tadpole-shaped nebula with a bright, compact, cometary nebula located inside the tadpole head. Our molecular line observations indicate that the Tadpole is predominantly molecular, with a total gas mass exceeding 3.7 Msun. Our radio continuum imaging, and archival Spitzer IRAC images, show the presence of additional tadpole-shaped objects in the vicinity of IRAS 20324+4057 that share a common E-W head-tail orientation: we propose that these structures are small, dense molecular cores that originated in the Cygnus cloud and are now being (i) photoevaporated by the ultraviolet radiation field of the Cyg OB2 No. 8 cluster located to the North-West, and (ii) shaped by ram pressure of a distant wind source or sources located to the West, blowing ablated and photoevaporated material from their heads eastwards. The ripples in the tail of the Tadpole are interpreted in terms of instabilities at the interface between the ambient wind and the dense medium of the former.Comment: (accepted by the Astrophysical Journal

A paisagem como ferramenta de análise de políticas públicas de conservação ambiental : o caso da fronteira Brasil – França

International audienc

La spatialisation de la biodiversité : pour la gestion durable des territoires

Depuis le sommet de Rio de Janeiro en 1992, la diversité du vivant n’est plus l’apanage des biologistes : le concept de biodiversité envisage les relations du monde biologique avec les sociétés. La diversité se trouve en effet à présent au cœur des préoccupations de développement durable et de conservation. L’Amazonie, considérée comme une région de très grande diversité, attire depuis longtemps toutes les convoitises mais suscite désormais des inquiétudes : la nature inépuisable nous apparaît dès lors comme une biodiversité en péril. Mais, comment évaluer l’état et les transformations de la biodiversité de cette immense région ? Quels sont les effets des nombreuses politiques publiques de développement et de conservation qui s’y sont multipliées ces dernières décennies ? Cet ouvrage présente d’abord la complexité de quelques situations locales amazoniennes – des systèmes agricoles indigènes aux fronts pionniers associés à l’élevage extensif. L’imagerie satellitale permet ensuite de cartographier les dynamiques de la biodiversité végétale dans l’espace et le temps à partir d’une analyse des paysages et de l’estimation de leur complexité grâce à une démarche pluridisciplinaire (de la botanique à l’anthropologie). Les transformations des paysages et les variations concomitantes de la biodiversité sont par ailleurs mises en relation avec les politiques publiques et les actions privées. L’approche méthodologique, volontairement simple, a été élaborée avec l’ambition d’être applicable à d’autres espaces forestiers tropicaux

Gestion de la biodiversité et des ressources renouvelables en Amazonie Spatialisation et approche paysagère du Projet BIODAM

Amazonia, main biodiversity reservoir on Earth, is at the heart of scientific and social debates focusing on sustainable management of natural resources. Brazilian and French teams working on this project selected several study sites in the Amazon Basin in function of spatial and temporal scales conditioning access to natural resources and biodiversity. The first objective is to document practices and impacts of rural settlers and of traditional agriculture on local biodiversity. In a second time, the projects aims at assessing the role of public policies in biodiversity evolution. This project benefits from great pluridisciplinary within its research teams and its institutional partnership. Remote sensing and spatial analysis integrate both botanical and socio-economic data sets in order to deliver cartographic documents showing trends in biodiversity evolution and in public policy impacts on biodiversity. (Résumé d'auteur

MERLIN radio detection of an interaction zone within a binary Orion proplyd system

Presented here are high angular resolution MERLIN 5 GHz (6 cm) continuum observations of the binary proplyd system, LV 1 in the Orion nebula, which consists of proplyd 168--326SE and its binary proplyd companion 168--326NW (separation 0.4 arcsec). Accurate astrometric alignment allows a detailed comparison between these data and published HST PC Halpha and [Oiii] images. Thermal radio sources coincide with the two proplyds and originate in the ionized photoevaporating flows seen in the optical emission lines. Flow velocities of approx 50 km/s from the ionized proplyd surfaces and \geq 100 km/s from a possible micro-jet have been detected using the Manchester Echelle spectrometer. A third radio source is found to coincide with a region of extended, high excitation, optical line emission that lies between the binary proplyds 168--326SE/326NW . This is modelled as a bowshock due to the collision of the photoevaporating flows from the two proplyds. Both a thermal and a non-thermal origin for the radio emission in this collision zone are considered.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures, accepted by Ap

A Keck High Resolution Spectroscopic Study of the Orion Nebula Proplyds

We present the results of spectroscopy of four bright proplyds in the Orion Nebula obtained at a velocity resolution of 6 km/s. After careful isolation of the proplyd spectra from the confusing nebular radiation, the emission line profiles are compared with those predicted by realistic dynamic/photoionization models of the objects. The spectral line widths show a clear correlation with ionization potential, which is consistent with the free expansion of a transonic, ionization-stratified, photoevaporating flow. Fitting models of such a flow simultaneously to our spectra and HST emission line imaging provides direct measurements of the proplyd size, ionized density and outflow velocity. These measurements confirm that the ionization front in the proplyds is approximately D-critical and provide the most accurate and robust estimate to date of the proplyd mass loss rate. Values of 0.7E-6 to 1.5E-6 Msun/year are found for our spectroscopic sample, although extrapolating our results to a larger sample of proplyds implies that 0.4E-6 Msun/year is more typical of the proplyds as a whole. In view of the reported limits on the masses of the circumstellar disks within the proplyds, the length of time that they can have been exposed to ionizing radiation should not greatly exceed 10,000 years - a factor of 30 less than the mean age of the proplyd stars. We review the various mechanisms that have been proposed to explain this situation, and conclude that none can plausibly work unless the disk masses are revised upwards by a substantial amount.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, uses emulateapj.sty, accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal (scheduled November 1999