Biography

Daniel Rocha, Ph.D. is fascinated by the exuberant biodiversity in tropical areas and has a passion to conduct research at poorly studied places. Since 2005, he has been studying mammal ecology and conservation in a range of tropical areas, but mostly in the Amazon Region. He is particularly interested in increasing the understanding of tropical species distributions, habitat associations, and demography, and how these are affected by human-driven stressors. His most current research project investigates how large mammals are responding to the rapid ongoing forest loss and fragmentation, as well as climate changes, in the southern Brazilian Amazon, aiming to propose better conservation practices and land use planning.

At the Quetzal Education Research Center, Dr. Rocha teaches courses and advises research projects on tropical ecology and conservation, with emphasis on vertebrates. 

Ph.D., Ecology, University of California, Davis
Post Graduate Diploma in International Wildlife Conservation Practice, University of Oxford (Oxford, United Kingdom)
M.S., Ecology, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (Manuas, Brazil)
BSc., Biological Science, Universidade Federal de Lavras (Lavras, Brazil)
Professor, Biology, Southern Nazarene University
At SNU since 2021

Notable Accomplishments

Since 2015, Dr. Rocha has an active research project on mammal ecology and conservation in the southern Brazilian Amazon. As part of this project, he has survived tough field expeditions and published several scientific papers.

Notable Publications

Rocha DG, de Barros FKMPM, Gonçalves L, Tan CKW, Lemos FG, Ortiz C, Peres CA, Negroes N, Antunes AP, Rohe F, Abrahams M, Zapata-Rios G, Teles D, Oliveira T, von Muhlen EM, Venticinque,  Grabin DM, Mosquera BD, Blake J, Lima MGM, Sampaio R, Percequillo AR, Peters F, Payan E, Borges LHM, Calouro AM, Endo W, Pitman RL, Haugaasen T, Silva DA, de Melo FR, de Moura ALB, Costa HCM, Lugarini C, de Sousa IG, Nienow S, Santos F, Mendes-Oliveiras AC, Del Toro-Orozco W, D’Amico AR, Albernaz AL, Ravetta A, do Carmo ECO, Ramalho E, Valsecchi J, Giordano AJ, Wallace R, Macdonald DW and Sollmann R . 2020. Wild dogs at stake: deforestation threatens the only Amazon endemic canid, the short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis). Royal Society of Open Science. 7190717.

Rocha DG, Vogliotti A, Gräbin DM, Assunção WRC, Cambraia BC, D’Amico AR, Portela AE and Sollmann R. 2019. New populations of pampas deer Ozotoceros bezoarticus discovered in the threatened Amazonian savannah enclaves. Oryx. 53(4), 748-751.

Rocha DG and Kaefer IL. 2019. What has become of the Refugia Hypothesis to explain biological diversity in Amazonia? Ecology and Evolution, 9, 4302–4309.

Tan CKW*, Rocha DG*, Clements GR, Brenes-Mora E, Hedges L, Kawanishi K, Mohamad SW, Rayan DM, Bolongon G, Moore J, Wadey J, Campos-Arceiz A and Macdonald DW. 2017. Habitat use and predicted range for the mainland clouded leopard Neofelis nebulosa in Peninsular Malaysia. Biological Conservation, 206, 65-74. *joint first authors. 

Rocha DG, Ramalho EE, Magnusson WE. 2016. Baiting for carnivores might negatively affect capture rates of prey species in camera-trap studies. Journal of Zoology, 300(3), 205-212.

Rocha DG, Sollmann R, Ramalho EE, Ilha R and Tan CKW. 2016. Ocelot Leopardus pardalis density in Central Amazonia. PLoS ONE, 11, e0154624.

View more of Dr. Rocha’s work on Research Gate

Activities

Member of the American Society of Mammalogists
Member of the Society for Conservation Biology
Research Methodologies (Camera trapping, Mammal live trapping, Telemetry, Audio recording, Social surveys, Spatial Analysis, R coding)

Summary of Interests

Tropical Ecology
Wildlife Biology
Mammalogy
Conservation
Statistics