Dr Carlos A Peres : Research Interests University of East Anglia - 404 Error page University of East Anglia - 404 Error page

Dr Carlos A Peres : Research Interests
I have had a life-long interest in the ecology and conservation of neotropical forests and have spent the last 15 years working on the responses of medium to large-bodied forest vertebrates to different forms of anthropogenic disturbance in tropical forests including subsistence hunting, habitat fragmentation and surface fires. In 1987, I initiated a long-term pan-Amazonian study elucidating the basin-wide patterns of vertebrate diversity and abundance in different forest types in relation to key environmental gradients including soil fertility, rainfall seasonality, and forest composition. As part of this large-scale project, we have been examining reserve selection and design criteria in relation to regional complements of biodiversity value and the implementation costs of conservation area networks under varying degrees of protection.

I also supervise field research programs in neotropical forests at (i) the Kayapó Indian Reserve of southeastern Amazonia focusing on the population ecology of key non-timber forest products such as Brazil-nuts, game vertebrates and other resource populations; (ii) the Uauaçú Reserve of central Amazonia, where we have been studying the seasonal dynamics of a frugivorous vertebrate assemblage in a natural forest mosaic; (iii) the Alta Floresta region of northern Mato Grosso, southern Amazonia, where we have been investigating the local, patch-level, and landscape-wide determinants of local extinctions of large vertebrates within forest fragments; and (iv) the Yucatan Peninsula, southern Mexico, where we have been considering landscape and patch-level effects of forest disturbance on large mammal populations.

We have published some 95 papers on neotropical ecology, conservation biology and resource management at scales ranging from populations to entire regional landscapes. In 1995 I received a Bay Foundation ‘Biodiversity Conservation Leadership Award’, and in 2000 was elected an ‘Environmentalist Leader for the New Millennium’ by Time Magazine and CNN Network. I am currently a Reader in Tropical Ecology and Conservation at the University of East Anglia, and divide my time between Norwich and fieldwork in the Brazilian Amazon.