Dr Cassio Alencar Nunes

Senior Research Associate

Research Overview

I am an applied ecologist from Brazil. Most of my research to date has been developed to understand the influence of the environment on biodiversity and ecological functions. Within this scope, my recent research was focused on the understanding of how anthropogenic activities change the environment and affect ecosystems. In my current project (RAINFAUNA), we aim to develop a framework to integrate local disturbances and climate change to predict faunal responses to future scenarios of change in Amazonia. Working on these subjects, I developed skills in the management and analysis of large ecological datasets, mainly through R programming.

Selected Publications

Multifaceted Assessment of Amazonian Tree Diversity Reveals Pervasive Impacts of Human Modification
Berenguer, E., Nunes, C.A., Aguirre‐Gutiérrez, J., Ferreira, J., Malhi, Y., Aragão, L.E.O.C., Esquivel‐Muelbert, A., Figueiredo, A.E.S., Hawes, J.E., Joly, C.A., Quesada, C.A., de Seixas, M.M.M., Vieira, I., Barlow, J. 30/11/2025 In: Global Change Biology. 31, 11
Journal article

Linking land-use and land-cover transitions to their ecological impact in the Amazon
Nunes, C., Berenguer, E., França, F., Ferreira, J., Lees, A., Louzada, J., Sayer, E., Solar, R., Smith, C., Aragão, L., Braga, D., de Camargo, P., Cerri, C., de Oliveira R.C., J., Durigan, M., Moura, N., Oliveira, V., Ribas, C., Vaz-de-Mello, F., Vieira, I., Zanetti, R., Barlow, J. 5/07/2022 In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 119, 27, 9 p.
Journal article

Dung beetles along a tropical altitudinal gradient: Environmental filtering on taxonomic and functional diversity
Nunes, C.A., Braga, R.F., Figueira, J.E.C., De Siqueira Neves, F., Fernandes, G.W. 23/06/2016 In: PLoS One. 11, 6
Journal article

Linking Biodiversity, the Environment and Ecosystem Functioning: Ecological Functions of Dung Beetles Along a Tropical Elevational Gradient
Nunes, C.A., Braga, R.F., de Moura Resende, F., de Siqueira Neves, F., Figueira, J.E.C., Fernandes, G.W. 1/09/2018 In: Ecosystems. 21, p. 1244-1254. 11 p.
Journal article

Functional redundancy of Amazonian dung beetles confers community-level resistance to primary forest disturbance
Alencar Nunes, C., Barlow, J., Machado Franca, F., De Berenguer Cesar, E., Solar, R.R.C., Louzada, J., Leitão, R.P., Mala, L.F., Fonseca Oliveira, V.H., Braga, R.F., Vaz-de-Mello, F.Z., Sayer, E. 30/11/2021 In: Biotropica. 53, 6, p. 1510-1521. 12 p.
Journal article

1st FST Fellowships Masterclass
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Austral Ecology (Journal)
Editorial activity

  • Ecology and Conservation