Yuri L. R. Leite

Evolution and Systematics of the Atlantic Tree Rats, Genus Phyllomys (Rodentia, Echimyidae), With Description of Two New Species

UC Publications in Zoology, 132

$19.95, £11.95 paperback

978-0-520-09849-7

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133 pages, 7 x 10 inches, 38 b/w figures, 13 tables
October 2003, Available worldwide
Categories: Organismal Biology; Zoology

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This study focuses on the Atlantic Forest tree rats of the genus Phyllomys (Rodentia: Echimyidae), one of the most poorly understood mammal genera inhabiting the coastal rain forests Brazil, the most threatened lowland tropical forest in the world. The author summarizes their distribution, ecology and evolution, using a combination of morphological and molecular analyses, describes two new species, and provides the first systematic revision of the genus, which was originally described in 1839.

Yuri Leite is a Brazilian national who received his PhD in Integrative Biology from the University of California at Berkeley in 2001. His undergraduate degree is from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and he has worked on applied biodiversity science projects for the NGO Conservation International in the past year. He now holds a tenured faculty position at the Federal University of Espirito Santo, in Vitoria on the southeastern coast of Brazil. He has had considerable field experience throughout Brazil, including Amazonian and Atlantic coastal rain forests as well as the dry caatinga and cerrado biomes. His research focuses on the evolution and systematics of mammals, primarily rodents and marsupials.