A Review of Mammarenaviruses and Rodent Reservoirs in the Americas.

In the Americas, infectious viral diseases caused by viruses of the genus Mammarenavirus have been reported since the 1960s. Such diseases have commonly been associated with land use changes, which favor abundance of generalist rodent species. In the Americas-where the rates of land use change are among the highest worldwide-at least 1326 of all 2277 known rodent species have been reported.

Causes and consequences of change rates in the habitat of the threatened tropical porcupine, Sphiggurus mexicanus (Rodentia: Erethizontidae) in Oaxaca, Mexico: implications for its conservation.

Land use changes by human activities have been the main causes of habitats and wildlife population degradation. In the Tehuantepec Isthmus in Oaxaca, the tropical habitat of the porcupine Sphiggurus mexicanus has been subject to vegetation and land use changes, causing its reduction and fragmentation. In this study, we estimated vegetation cover and land use (δn) change rates and assessed habitat availability and potential cor- ridors for possible porcupine movements to avoid its isolation.

Negative impacts of human land use on dung beetle functional diversity.

The loss of biodiversity caused by human activity is assumed to alter ecosystem functioning. However our understanding of the magnitude of the effect of these changes on functional diversity and their impact on the dynamics of ecological processes is still limited. We analyzed the functional diversity of copro-necrophagous beetles under different conditions of land use in three Mexican biosphere reserves.