Mammals of South America, Volume 2: Rodents

In his introduction to the first volume in this series, Alfred L. Gardner (2007) detailed the history of the intention that he, Sydney Anderson, and James L. Patton had to produce an updated reference to the mammals of South America, one that would provide a thorough review of knowledge about mammals dating from the mid 1700s through today. The goal for the series is to document the rich nomenclatural history for all taxa (families, genera, and species); describe morphological and other traits that aid in identification, both in the field and museum; delimit species distributions by listing and mapping marginal records confirmed by voucher specimens and the published literature; and summarize available observations on natural history. Gardner s volume 1, which covered marsupials, xenarthrans, soricomorphs, and chiroptera, set an exemplary standard of scholarship for this effort. This, the second volume in the series, covers the single order Rodentia, the most diverse of all mammalian groups world-wide, accounting for more than 42% of species and 39% of genera. The book provides an invaluable reference for all recent mammals (those known only from fossils and those introduced are not covered).
The first substantive review of South American rodents was published in 1961, and has not been significantly updated since. Yet in the intervening 50 years, the recognized diversity of South American rodents at both the genus and species levels has increased by 160%, and many of the taxa have been reordered in fundamentally different ways. These changes are the result of substantial increases in field research, especially in remote areas, the increase in the diversity of field survey methods, the introduction of bioinformations, and the explosion of molecular-based methodologies. Additionally, the greater interest and investment in measuring and conserving biodiversity has contributed a more structured and collaborative rationale as well as sense of urgency.
The geographic range of the book includes nuclear South America as well as the continental islands of Trinidad and Tobago and the Netherland Antilles off the Venezuelan coast. The accounts in this volume include identification keys and descriptions of each order, family, genus, and species. Each species account also includes comments on distribution; lists of marginal localities that are plotted on maps; comments on subspecies and, in a few cases only, lists of subspecies, their synonyms and distribution; summaries of natural history information; and discussions of issues related to type localities, taxonomic interpretations, and matters of nomenclatural importance. As with Volume 1, this one contains its own Gazetteer and Literature Cited, with the latter including all references mentioned in the text, in the Gazetteer, or references cited within entries in the Literature Cited section related to dates of publication."