Of cities, conservation and rodents: San Cristóbal de las Casas
Keywords:
ecology, landscapes, rodents, urbanization, zoonosisAbstract
Currently, more than half-worldwide population is living in a city. This present tendency is increasing. In this way, in a few years, even more people will inhabit in an exist or developing city. Predictions are that in 2030 six of ten Mexicans will live in a city, which will have consequences to the fauna, ecosystems, and human health. This research project is about a medium-sized city in Chiapas, named San Cristobal de las Casas, that has experienced an accelerated urbanization process in a short period. The overall goal was to evaluate the rodent’s response to the urbanization, from the landscape ecology approach. At the same time, we have investigated the role of natural and preserved landscapes in maintaining high diversities of rodent species. We found that preserved areas are not the most diverse areas; nevertheless, they maintain high abundance of rodent species that have not been found in other landscapes in San Cristobal de las Casas. In conclusion, these landscapes are under big anthropogenic pressure.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Revista Digital Universitaria es editada por la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México se distribuye bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional. Basada en una obra en http://revista.unam.mx/.