Predators, Prey and Habitat Structure: Can Key Conservation Areas and Early Signs of Population Collapse Be Detected in Neotropical Forests?

Tropical forests with a low human population and absence of large-scale deforestation provide unique opportunities to study successful conservation strategies, which should be based on adequate monitoring tools. This study explored the conservation status of a large predator, the jaguar, considered an indicator of the maintenance of how well ecological processes are maintained. We implemented an original integrative approach, exploring successive ecosystem status proxies, from habitats and responses to threats of predators and their prey, to canopy structure and forest biomass.

Maripa hantavirus in French Guiana: phylogenetic position and predicted spatial distribution of rodent hosts.

A molecular screening of wild-caught rodents was conducted in French Guiana, South America to identify hosts of the hantavirus Maripa described in 2008 in a hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) case. Over a 9-year period, 418 echimyids and murids were captured. Viral RNA was detected in two sigmodontine rodents, Oligoryzomys fulvescens and Zygodontomys brevicauda, trapped close to the house of a second HPS case that occurred in 2009 and an O.