Publications by authors named "Armando Rodriguez-Duran"
Article Synopsis
- Researchers are studying how viruses infect bats in Puerto Rico to learn more about viral epidemics and improve public health.
- They collected samples from 1086 bats and found a lot of different herpesviruses, which they categorized into groups for further study.
- The results showed that most herpesviruses prefer to infect just one type of bat rather than spreading to many different species, and they explained how this can help us understand virus communities better.
Article Synopsis
- Wind energy is increasing globally to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but it negatively affects bat populations due to turbine-related fatalities and habitat loss.
- Measures such as placing turbines away from sensitive areas and limiting operations during peak bat activity are essential to minimize these impacts.
- There is a lack of legal protections for bats against wind energy development in many countries, highlighting the need for governments and financial institutions to enforce environmental standards to balance energy production with wildlife conservation.
Urbanization and natural disasters can disrupt landscape connectivity, effectively isolating populations and increasing the risk of local extirpation particularly in island systems. To understand how fragmentation affects corridors among forested areas, we used circuit theory to model the landscape connectivity of the endemic bat Stenoderma rufum within Puerto Rico. Our models combined species occurrences, land use, habitat suitability, and vegetation cover data that were used either as resistance (land use) or conductance layers (habitat suitability and vegetation cover).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDetection of rabies viral neutralizing antibodies in the Puerto Rican .
Infect Ecol Epidemiol
October 2020
The purpose of this study was to determine if Puerto Rican bats had previous exposure to rabies virus based on viral neutralizing antibodies. Our results demonstrate that 6.5% of the bats in this study had some exposure to rabies virus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe term hot cave is used to describe some subterranean chambers in the Neotropics that are characterized by constantly high ambient temperatures generated by the body heat of high densities of certain bat species. Many of these species have limited geographic ranges, and some occur only in the hot-cave environment. In addition to the bats, the stable microclimate and abundant bat guano provides refuge and food for a high diversity of invertebrates.
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