The Maranhão Regional Department, coordinated by the State University of Maranhão (UEMA) was established in 2006, currently having sixteen researchers, ten of these being graduates, six of these with a Masters degree, in addition to four program scholarship students and a number of other graduate students. The project, submitted and approved through the Public Notice: “Research Program in Biodiversity (PPBIO) of the Eastern Amazonian region – an inventory of the biota of the Maranhense Amazon in the Gurupi Biological Reserve”, has the following objectives: