INTROPICA

7-22

Authors: Eduino Carbonó De La Hoz, Zeyder Cruz

This study was performed in the banana’s zone of Santa Marta, Colombia, from march 2000 throughout november 2001. The main goal was identify cover crops species that could be potentially useful in commercial banana plantations. Four species were selected from the weed complex spontaneously associated to banana plantations. Teramus volubilis Sw., Callisia cordifolia (Sw.) E. S. Anderson et Woodson, Desmodium scorpiurus (Sw.) Desv. and D. triflorum (L.) DC. showed characteristics of capability on competence and control of weeds in banana plantations. This study promote a useful index for the evaluation and selection of cover crops species potentially important in banana plantations (Potentially as Cover Crop Index) in order to quantify observational parameters, needed for the selection. A list of weed species, which grow in Santa Marta banana plantations region, is presented

35-49

Authors: Luis O. Duarte, Jairo Altamar, Fabián D. Escobar

The Fisheries Assessment and Ecology Information System (SIEEP) emerges from the necessity of a efficient scheme for the storing, standardizing, validation and recovering of the informative basis (biotic and abiotic) to develop the integral approaches claimed by the scientific community for the study of fisheries resources. It is a digital database developed in Microsoft® Access 2002, with a relational and hierarchical model for data storing integrated by three components that include several modules: document catalogue, biotic information and abiotic information. It has a graphic interfaces system of intuitive access through which users can navigate in the application, store data, explore information, execute queries and reports that are visualised in the screen, are exported in several file formats or are printed. The gathering of the information derived from studies carried out in the Upwelling Ecosystem off Colombia, Caribbean Sea, since 1970 was the first application of the SIEEP. An informative basis with over 250.000 records was obtained, that for sure will become an obligated source for fisheries researches in the region. The SIEEP allows storing useful information for analysis and management strategies that place fisheries in the ecosystem context. Contributions with data and initiatives for the permanent update of the SIEEP are welcomed.