Norma Rocio Forero Muñoz

Université de Montréal | UdeM · Department of Biological Sciences

Background Range maps are a useful tool to describe the spatial distribution of species. However, they need to be used with caution, as they essentially represent a rough approximation of a species’ suitable habitats. When stacked together, the resulting communities in each grid cell may not always be realistic, especially when species interactions...

Pathogen evolution is one of the least predictable components of disease emergence, particularly in nature. Here, building on principles established by the geographic mosaic theory of coevolution, we develop a quantitative, spatially-explicit framework for mapping the evolutionary risk of viral emergence. Driven by interest in diseases like SARS, M...

Range maps are a useful tool to describe the spatial distribution of species. However, they often need to be used with caution, as they essentially represent a rough approximation of a species’ suitable habitats. When stacked together, the resulting communities in each grid cell may not always be realistic, especially when species interactions are...

If we want to protect our environment, we first need to know where animals and plants are. Are they hidden in the woods? Are they next to cities? Which woods or which cities? Wandering all over the world to find where living things are might seem exciting at first. However, in the long run, it might get a little tiring, no? Thankfully, we do not ne...

Networks of species interactions can capture meaningful information on the structure and functioning of ecosystems. Yet the scarcity of existing data, and the difficulty associated with comprehensively sampling interactions between species, means that to describe the structure, variation, and change of ecological networks over time and space, we ne...

Canine distemper virus (CDV) is the cause of a multisystem disease in domestic dogs and wild animals, infecting more than 20 carnivore and non-carnivore families and even infecting human cell lines in in vitro conditions. Phylogenetic classification based on the hemagglutinin gene shows 17 lineages with a phylogeographic distribution pattern. In Me...