Emerson Monteiro Vieira

University of Brasília | UnB · Department of Ecology

Habitat loss can lead to biotic homogenization (decrease in β diversity) or differentiation (increase in β diversity) of biological communities. However, it is unclear which of these ecological processes predominates in human-modified landscapes. We used data on vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants to quantify β diversity based on species occurre...

Habitat loss can lead to biotic homogenization (decrease in β diversity) or differentiation (increase in β diversity) of biological communities. However, it is unclear which of these ecological processes predominates in human‐modified landscapes. We used data on vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants to quantify β diversity based on species occurre...

Aim Changes in landscape configuration significantly impact ecosystems and the services they provide, including disease regulation for both humans and wildlife. Land use conversion usually favors disturbed‐adapted species, which are often known reservoirs of zoonotic parasites, thereby potentially escalating spillover events (i.e., the transmission...

Seed dispersal is a key process that influences the recruitment of plant species, yielding profound consequences on vegetation structure. This process can be affected by environmental disturbances, such as fires, leading to varied impacts on the agents involved, both dispersers and plants. We investigated the potential role of small mammals (rodent...

Changes in landscape configuration significantly impact ecosystems and the services they provide, including disease regulation for both humans and wildlife. Land use conversion usually favors disturbed-adapted species, often known reservoirs of zoonotic parasites, thereby potentially escalating spillover events (i.e., the transmission of parasites...

While harboring the bulk of the planet's biodiversity, tropical ecosystems have experienced intense land conversion for agriculture. Studies examining the impacts of land-use change on tropical biodiversity have primarily focused on forest cover loss but have overlooked the ecological potential of habitats surrounding forest fragments to modulate b...

Understanding how species respond to the environmental heterogeneity created by fire (i.e., pyrodiversity) is essential to protect biodiversity in the face of current changes in the natural fire regime. Pyrodiversity is hypothesized to promote biodiversity, but this hypothesis has mixed support and has never been tested for medium- and large-sized...

Knowledge regarding the influence of individual traits on interaction patterns in nature can help understand the topological role of individuals within a network of intrapopulation interactions. We tested hypotheses on the relationships between individuals’ positions within networks (specialization and centrality) of four populations of the mouse o...

Recent studies have argued that changes in fire regimes in the 21st century are posing a major threat to global biodiversity. In this scenario, incorporating species' physiological, ecological, and evolutionary traits with their local fire exposure might facilitate accurate identification of species most at risk from fire. Here, we developed a fram...

Background. The Cerrado is a neotropical savannah with high mammalian diversity where wildfires are rather common and highly relevant to its ecological patterns and processes. The effects of fire on Cerrado mammals, however, are poorly understood. Aims. We investigated the effects of an unplanned large wildfire (burned area ~66 000 ha) on medium an...

The pace of deforestation in tropical forests has achieved unprecedented rates, requiring effective and achievable conservation mitigations that are also easily understood by society and policy makers. In this context, we report the outcomes from a large-scale project located in the threatened Atlantic Forest (SISBIOTA network) to understand how de...

This is the introductory article to the Research Topic "Drivers of Small-mammal Community Structure in Tropical Savannas", in the journals Conservation and Restoration Ecology section. The editorial provides background from previously published studies and a brief synopsis of each newly published article in the Research Topic. This collection will...

Synthetic biology is a new area of science that operates at the intersection of engineering and biology and aims to design and synthesize living organisms and systems to perform new or improved functions. Despite the important role it plays in resolving global issues, instructing synthetic biology can be challenged by a limited availability of spec...

Fire occurrence affects the distribution of key resources for fauna in natural ecosystems worldwide. For fire management strategies adequate for biodiversity conservation, the understanding of how species respond to fire-induced changes is essential. In this study, we investigated the role of fire regimes on spaces used by medium and large mammals...

Small-mammal faunas of tropical savannas consist of endemic assemblages of murid rodents, small marsupials, and insectivores on four continents. Small mammals in tropical savannas are understudied compared to other tropical habitats and other taxonomic groups (e.g., Afrotropical megafauna or Neotropical rainforest mammals). Their importance as prey...

Worldwide, nature-based tourism is becoming more popular and important economically. However, there is still debate regarding its impact on wildlife in protected areas. We conducted a quasi-experimental study to investigate the effects of tourism on the mammal community of Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park, a priority area for conservation in Brazi...

Natural predators of agricultural pests are known to help increase crop yields and are considered an alternative to chemical insecticides. We investigated the role of the gracile mouse opossum Gracilinanus agilis for controlling a soybean pest, the brown stink bug Euschistus heros. We tested the hypothesis that this bug disperses to natural forest...

The Brazilian savanna (Cerrado) is one of the 25 world terrestrial hotspots, which covers about 2 million km2 and harbors 26 marsupial species inhabiting grasslands, savannas, and forests. Studies show that marsupials feed mostly on insects, fruits, and small vertebrates, being categorized within three feeding guilds: carnivorous, frugivorous-omniv...

The Amazon forest has the highest biodiversity on Earth. However, information on Amazonian vertebrate diversity is still deficient and scattered across the published, peer‐reviewed, and gray literature and in unpublished raw data. Camera traps are an effective non‐invasive method of surveying vertebrates, applicable to different scales of time and...

The Amazon forest has the highest biodiversity on Earth. However, information on Amazonian vertebrate diversity is still deficient and scattered across the published, peer-reviewed, and gray literature and in unpublished raw data. Camera traps are an effective non-invasive method of surveying vertebrates, applicable to different scales of time and...

Protected areas (PAs) are a widely recognized tool for biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. However, megadiverse countries struggle to manage, maintain, and expand PAs as they face mounting human pressures. The Brazilian Cerrado biome (a biodiversity hotspot) is experiencing increasing land-use changes paired with a loss of natural vegetation,...

Unusual movements of an animal can potentially represent a dispersal event. A higher frequency of young males dispersing is a pattern observed for most part of polygynous or promiscuous mammals with these dispersion events occurring, mainly, before or at the beginning of the breeding season. The water opossum (Chironectes minimus), the only marsupi...

Seed dispersal and predation are critical processes for plant recruitment which can be affected by fire events. We investigated community composition of small mammals in gallery forests with distinct burning histories (burned or not burned ∼3 years before) in the Cerrado (neotropical savanna). We evaluated the role of these animals as seed removers...

The dynamics of trophic niche width in animals at both population level and individual level is potentially influenced by temporal variation of food resources, by between‐individual differences in food‐resource rank preferences, and also by competition. Using stable isotope of carbon and nitrogen ( δ ¹³ C and δ 15 N) of fecal samples, we investigat...

Biological invasion is one of the main threats to native biodiversity. For a species to become invasive, it must be voluntarily or involuntarily introduced by humans into a nonnative habitat. Mammals were among first taxa to be introduced worldwide for game, meat, and labor, yet the number of species introduced in the Neotropics remains unknown. In...

There are several factors that can determine the pattern of habitat use by species in fragmented habitats. Here we investigated the applicability of the continuum model, which predicts that habitat use varies in a continuous way and not categorically like habitat and not-habitat, for small mammal habitat use. We also investigated if habitat-related...

The Cerrado is the second largest Brazilian biome and only 2.8% is represented by protected areas. Considering the relevance of the Cerrado and Conservation Units in preserving the mammalian diversity, we provided the first assessment of the diversity of medium-and large-sized mammal species in the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park (CVNP) and sur...

Knowing the trophic ecology of the species that occur in a given location is crucial for understanding the factors that allow their coexistence. Using stable isotope ratios (δ 13 C and δ 15 N) and metrics of the isotopic niche, we evaluated the trophic level of 22 small mammal species from the Brazilian Cerrado (neotropical savanna) through the ass...

Xenarthrans—anteaters, sloths, and armadillos—have essential functions for ecosystem maintenance, such as insect control and nutrient cycling, playing key roles as ecosystem engineers. Because of habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting pressure, and conflicts with domestic dogs, these species have been threatened locally, regionally, or even across...

Xenarthrans—anteaters, sloths, and armadillos—have essential functions for ecosystem maintenance, such as insect control and nutrient cycling, playing key roles as ecosystem engineers. Because of habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting pressure, and conflicts with domestic dogs, these species have been threatened locally, regionally, or even across...

Fragmented habitats generally harbour small populations that are potentially more prone to local extinctions caused by biotic factors such as parasites. We evaluated the effects of botflies ( Cuterebra apicalis ) on naturally fragmented populations of the gracile mouse opossum ( Gracilinanus agilis ). We examined how sex, food supplementation exper...

• Spatial and temporal variation in networks has been reported in different studies. However, the many effects of habitat structure and food resource availability variation on network structures have remained poorly investigated, especially in individual‐based networks. This approach can shed light on individual specialization of resource use and h...

Brain enlargement is an adaptation in animals that use the space in three dimensions and need to integrate information of complex environments. As consequence, this adaptation can result in differences in skull shape among species with different types of locomotion and level of arboreality. We directly tested for the relation between the cranial sh...

To better understand the relationship between forest complexity and small mammal diversity, we investigated the vertical stratification of marsupials and rodents in 2 forest types with distinct levels of complexity in a Neotropical savanna (Brazilian Cerrado). We livetrapped mammals in gallery forests and the less-complex savanna woodland forests (...

Fire is a major disturbance event that affects biomes worldwide, altering vegetation structure and flora and fauna assemblages. Here, we investigated the effects of an extensive wildfire (~ 6240 ha) on small mammal assemblages in savanna woodland (cerradão) at two spatial scales (meso- and macrohabitat) in a neotropical savanna (Brazilian Cerrado)....

Agonistic events can cause the death of one or more individuals involved and can be an important factor in population structure. The recording of these interactions between small mammals in situ is a difficult task. Here, we describe for the first time two intraspecific killing events occurred inside traps between male sigmodontine rodents belongin...

Patterns in distribution and local abundance of species within a biome are central concerns in ecology and allow the understanding of the effects of habitat loss on rates of species extinction; provide support for the creation and management of reserves; and contribute to the identification and quantification of the processes that allow niche parti...

Phyllomys is the most species-rich genus among spiny tree rats of the family Echimyidae and includes members widely distributed throughout the Atlantic Forest of South America. Among recognized species recovered in previous studies, 4 lineages are unnamed and their taxonomic distinctness needs further investigation. Biogeographic analyses recovered...

Here we compile a data set comprising morphological and life history information of 279 mammal species from 39,850 individuals of 388 populations ranging from 5.83 to 29.75 decimal degrees of latitude and 34.82 to 56.73 decimal degrees of lon- gitude in the Atlantic forest of South America. We present trait information from 16,840 individ- uals of...

Measures of traits are the basis of functional biological diversity. Numerous works consider mean species-level measures of traits while ignoring individual variance within species. However, there is a large amount of variation within species and it is increasingly apparent that it is important to consider trait variation not only between species,...

Listas de espécies ameaçadas identificam taxa com real ou potencial risco de extinção em uma escala regional e global, embasando a tomada de decisões e a formulação de políticas públicas. A construção da primeira lista estadual de espécies ameaçadas de extinção na Bahia teve início em 2013. Este artigo descreve a avaliação do status de conservação...

We describe a newly developed and low-cost feeder designed for use with arboreal small mammals under any climatic condition. As part of a project on bottom-up regulation of small mammal populations in central Brazil, we present the results of 16 months of food supplementation. During the study, more than 118 kg of milled cat food were consumed, out...

The temporal activity of animals is an outcome of both biotic and abiotic factors, which may vary along the geographic range of the species. Therefore, studies conducted with a species in different localities with distinct features could elucidate how animals deal with such factors. In this study, we used live traps equipped with timing devices to...

Temporal activity data of the opossum Gracilinanus agilis. (XLSX)

Designing landscapes that can meet human needs, while maintaining functioning ecosystems, is essential for long-term sustainability. To achieve this goal, we must better understand the trade-offs and thresholds in the provision of ecosystem services and economic returns. To this end, we integrate spatially explicit economic and biophysical models t...

As biodiversity loss rapidly increases through habitat degradation in the Amazon rainforest, the need to characterize and understand the species diversity becomes even more important. In this study we used empirical and published datasets to assess the diversity patterns and produce the first overview of the sphingid fauna in the Brazilian Amazon....

Scatter-hoarding rodents may interact with the structural characteristics of their environment in several ways: by seeking dense areas inside the forest for protection during seed handling, by caching seeds close to objects that might be used as visual cues for seed recovery or by hiding themselves inside refuges such as burrows. We investigated th...

Food availability is considered to be a primary factor affecting animal populations, yet few experimental tests have been performed to evaluate its actual importance in species-rich ecosystems such as rainforests. It has been suggested that in such systems certain plant species may act as “keystone” resources for animals, but the importance of pres...