Geographer Florencia Sangermano is mapping scenarios for rainforest destruction vs. restoration in Brazil<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The agouti is one of many rodents found in the Brazilian rainforest. Across the world, rodents “are the most diverse order of mammals, with 42% of the global mammal biodiversity [and] the most important hosts of infectious diseases,” according to EcoHealth Alliance.\n<\/p>\n
Clark geographer Florencia Sangermano and her collaborators studied the effect of PM2.5 particulates — the fine particles — from forest fires in the Amazon on heart and respiratory diseases and the economic impact of these effects.<\/p>\n
They found that particulate matter can disperse over hundreds of miles, affecting people who live up to 310 miles away, according to their study<\/a> recently published in Nature’s Communications Earth and Environment.<\/p>\n More research in Brazil<\/a><\/p>\n <\/div>\n Clark geographer Florencia Sangermano <\/a>is working with collaborators in Brazil to examine how habitat and biodiversity loss in the rainforest could affect rodent populations, possibly leading to the transmission of infectious diseases to humans.<\/p>\n Funded<\/a> by the National Science Foundation, the research team — Sangermano; Paula R. Prist of EcoHealth Alliance; <\/a>and Leandro Reverberi Tambosi of Federal University of ABC in Brazil — also is examining whether restoring the forest could improve “biodiversity networks” — the interconnected world of diverse plant and animal species — that, in turn, might benefit human health, explains Sangermano, assistant professor of geography.<\/p>\n Working out of the Geospatial Conservation Lab in Clark’s Graduate School of Geography<\/a>, Sangermano is creating digital maps that indicate how land and rodent populations in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest — which lies east of the Amazon — could change over the next 10 years, leading to increased health risks for humans.<\/p>\n “Our hypothesis is that a degraded ecosystem will have more diversity of rodents that carry a larger number of viruses known to pass to humans,” she says. “Now humans are moving to these areas where they can come into contact with these rodents.”<\/p>\n Scientists have continued to focus on “spillover risks” since the COVID-19 pandemic, which, according to some studies, started with sickened animals<\/a>.<\/p>\n