Mongabay: During ten years surveying small mammal populations in Bolivia’s cerrado, Dr. Louise Emmons with the Smithsonian Institute found that the mammals were suffering precipitous declines, even local extinctions. After ruling out the usual suspects–local fires, rainfall, and flooding–Emmons formed a novel hypothesis regarding the decline. Could a sudden lack of nighttime dew caused by the burning of the Amazon be the cause of the mammal decline? In the cerrado–a tropical region of …