Marco A. Ribeiro-Júnior

TL;DR: The results show that, whereas the biodiversity indicator group concept may hold some validity for several taxa that are frequently sampled, it fails for those exhibiting highly idiosyncratic responses to tropical land-use change, highlighting the problems associated with quantifying the biodiversity value of anthropogenic habitats.

TL;DR: This work presents a generic and novel framework for identifying high-performance indicator taxa that combine practical feasibility and ecological value, and illustrates the approach using a large-scale assessment of 14 different higher taxa across three forest types in the Brazilian Amazon.

TL;DR: Although plantation forests are relatively impoverished, naturally regenerating forests can help mitigate some negative effects of deforestation for herpetofauna, secondary forest does not provide a substitute for primary forest, and in the absence of further evidence from older successional stands, it is cautioned against the optimistic claim that natural forest regeneration in abandoned lands will provide refuge for the many species that are currently threatened by deforestation.

TL;DR: This is the first standardized comparison of patterns of species richness, rank-abundance, and community structure for both passive and active sampling methods for the study of herpetofauna in a tropical forest landscape.

TL;DR: The data indicate that regenerating forests are not biological deserts and can, therefore, help mitigate some of the negative effects of deforestation for epigeic arachnids and help conserve many of those species most at risk from extinction.