We study how species interactions (particularly between plants and vertebrate frugivores) and how animal loss impacts the ecology and evolution of the biodiversity and the biogeochemical cycles in tropical rainforests and savannas.

​

Some field-based projects that we are currently working on:

​

Brazil.  We run a long-term multi-site mammal exclusion experiment in the Atlantic Forest. In this work we are examining how the loss of large mammals influence plant and animal diversity, and carbon and nitrogen dynamics. For more information (https://souzayuri.shinyapps.io/biota/).

Caribbean Islands.  In collaboration with Bo Dalgaard from the University of Copenhagen, we are mapping and measuring the loss interaction of fruiting plants and frugivores. The Caribbean Islands is one of the most defaunated archipelagos in the world and we are interested in elucidating the effects of animal loss on plant persistence.

Global. Across the globe, we are measuring how island attributes and human impact affect frugivory.  This project partners with a large series of collaborators interested in examining these differences in natural and human-modified systems along different environmental gradients.

Our team also works on global scale databases to ask macroevolutionary and functional ecology questions. Here are some of our current database projects.

1.  Atlantic Collection: a series of data papers on birds, mammals, epiphytes, ants, etc. from the Atlantic Forest. Link here: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1002/(ISSN)1939-9170.AtlanticPapers