Emiliano Muschetto

• Dr.
• University of Buenos Aires

Rattus norvegicus, a globally distributed invasive species, has successfully established urban populations in close association with humans posing significant economic and public health challenges worldwide. Understanding the relationship between landscape features and genetic differentiation among R. norvegicus populations is crucial for developin...

Human activities are inducing substantial modifications to landscapes on a worldwide scale. As a result, a multitude of animal species are forced to adapt and survive within remnants of altered natural habitats rendering them more vulnerable to the impact of genetic drift. The objective of this research is to assess the degree of connectivity among...

Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) have been used extensively as sentinels in environmental studies of lead exposure. This metal can affect every organ in the body, mainly the nervous system. The Matanza-Riachuelo Basin (MRB) is one of the most polluted basins in the world and presents a gradient of toxic metal contamination along its length. The over...

Rats are a problem in cities worldwide, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. Urbanization works (e.g. construction, excavations, demolition, etc.) in these neighborhoods must be a priority to improve the quality of life of their residents. The disturbances generated by these works can destroy the habitats of rodents, forcing them to seek new s...

Background Angiostrongylus cantonensis, commonly known as the rat lungworm, is a metastrongyloid nematode found primarily not only in tropical and subtropical regions but also in temperate areas and considered the leading cause of eosinophilic meningitis in humans. Synanthropic rodents such as Rattus norvegicus and Rattus rattus are the most freque...

Detectability poses a common challenge faced by studies of small mammals. Traditional sampling methods use traps placed exclusively on the ground, which makes them less effective for monitoring species with climbing habits. The bias arising from imperfect detection may have important implications in pest assessment, epidemiological studies involvin...

To protect ecosystems impacted by human activities and prevent their degradation, it is imperative to evaluate variations in the concentration of environmental pollutants over time. Here, we evaluated the intra- and inter-annual variations of several metals from 15 sites in the Matanza Riachuelo River basin (one of the most polluted in the world) a...

Biotic resistance from post-dispersal seed predators has been shown to influence invasion and spread of woody plants in grasslands and savannas. Yet the role of rodent granivores as a barrier to woody plant invasion remains poorly studied. We examined the impact of rodent exclusion and canopy disturbance on two exotic tree seedling establishment (G...

In urban rivers in many fast-growing cities, heavy metals pollution is one of the major quality issues. Quantifying its recovery success seems to be a difficult but necessary challenge, in part, because a complex database is generally needed to assess water quality. The overall goal of this work was to evaluate temporal changes in metal concentrati...

The overall goal of this work was to analyze the relationship between the concentration of lead in the kidney, liver, and stomach contents of rats captured in a polluted urban basin and the concentration of this metal in the environment, meteorological factors, and different intrinsic characteristics of the individuals. To this end, we determined t...

Green spaces in urban areas can play a key role in protecting wildlife. However, the presence of wildlife in urban areas can lead to human health risks. Although the presence of the rodent species Oligoryzomys flavescens (hantavirus reservoir) has been recorded in cities of Argentina, its population dynamics in this type of habitat is still unknown...

Geoffroy’s cat (Leopardus geoffroyi), a small wild cat of South America, showed in the last years a decline in population abundance mainly related to both habitat destruction and hunting. The increasing human population densities and the consequent demand for food and natural resources will rapidly erode and fragment its remaining habitats. In Arge...

La abundancia del gato montés (Leopardus geoffroyi), un pequeño felino silvestre sudamericano, se ha reducido principalmente por la destrucción de su hábitat y por la caza. En la Argentina, la mayoría de los estudios sobre la dieta del gato montés se llevaron a cabo en áreas protegidas y en sus alrededores, mientras que no existen estudios en siste...

Commensal rodents are some of the main vertebrate pests in urban areas; however, knowledge about factors that favor them at large scales is scarce. We studied spatial and temporal variations in rodent infestation levels at the whole city scale using the complaints of rodent sightings and questionnaire surveys to city neighbors. Demographic, socio-e...

Biotic resistance has been invoked as a major barrier to woody species invasion, although the role of resident generalist consumers and their interaction with seed availability in a local community has received little attention. We assessed tree seed consumption by rodents under two different scenarios: (i) We documented in field spatio-temporal pa...

Within a species, home-range size can vary due to intrinsic and extrinsic factors. In this study we test the hypotheses that social group sizes (intrinsic) of capybaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) and food availability in their habitat (extrinsic) affect their home-range sizes. We used the minimum convex polygon method to estimate home-range sizes...

Woody plant invasion in grassland ecosystems is a worldwide phenomenon, and biotic interactions as competition and predation have been invoked as a possible barrier to woody encroachment in many eco-systems. We evaluated the role of rodents as seed pre-dators in Pampean grasslands, and we assessed the differences in removal by rodents between one n...

We provide new data on the natural history and morphometrics of one of the least studied didelphid marsupial species, Lutreolina crassicaudata. Field work was conducted in central-eastern Argentina during two consecutive years. Juveniles and sub-adults were captured during summer and autumn. Reproduction showed seasonality with a continuous breedin...

We provide new data on the natural history and morphometrics of one of the least studied didelphid marsupial species, Lutreolina crassicaudata. Field work was conducted in central-eastern Argentina during two consecutive years. Juveniles and sub-adults were captured during summer and autumn. Reproduction showed seasonality with a continuous breedin...

We studied the small mammal assemblage (bats, marsupials and rodents) of Parque Nacional Chaco and Capitán Solari(Chaco Province, Argentina) based on captures and analysis of owl pellets. Twenty-one species were recorded during abrief survey, including two marsupials, seven bats, and twelve rodents. In addition, we documented the first occurrenceof...

The aim of this work was to study the range of movements of Norway rats in two poultry farms in Exaltación de la Cruz, Buenos Aires Province. Three female and three male rats were followed by radio-telemetry. The mean home range was 0.024 ha (0.0024 to 0.0525 ha) and the mean maximum distance between localization points was 33.70 m (10 m to 66 m)....

Mammal hairs present characters that differ among species, and may therefore be used for diagnoses at species level. We characterized dorsal guard hairs of small rodents that may be found in the central area of central Buenos Aires province according to their geographic distribution: Cavia aperea, Rattus rattus, R. norvegicus, Mus domesticus, Holoc...

La distribución actual de la comadrejita Gracilinanus microtarsus (Wagner, 1842) se restringe al sudeste de Brasil. En esta nota se presenta el primer registro documentado para esta especie en la Argentina. Se capturó un ejemplar de G. microtarsus en la localidad de Santa Ana (27º 36¿ S, 55º 56¿ O; Candelaria, Misiones), en un área que se ubica may...

We modeled relative abundance of rodent species according to landscape structure in communities where Rattus norvegicus, R. rattus (both SEOUL hantavirus reservoirs) and Oligoryzomys flavescens (ANDES hantavirus reservoir) are present. Relative abundance of rodent species was estimated, between October 2002 and December 2005; in nine sites at Bueno...