Hi, it's me! I'm Pedro!

Scientific Publications

Below are some of my publications, with brief explanations:

1. Pedro Henrique P. Braga, Steven Kembel, Pedro Peres-Neto (2024). Climatic rarity and commonness shape phylogenetic structure in tetrapod communities globally. Authorea. In review.

   Our global analysis shows that climatic rarity strongly influences the evolutionary diversity and structure within amphibian, bird, mammal, and reptile communities, underscoring climate frequency as a fundamental yet overlooked factor in shaping biodiversity and responses to climatic variation.

   Preprint   PDF   Data and Code

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2. Pedro Henrique P. Braga, Steven Kembel, Pedro Peres-Neto (2023). Historical and contemporary processes drive global phylogenetic structure across geographical scales: Insights from bat communities. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 32 (5), 747-765.

   Our study demonstrates that the worldwide phylogenetic structure of bat assemblages is shaped by geographical extent, dispersal barriers, paleoclimatic stability, and in situ diversification.

   Peer-reviewed publication   PDF   Data and Code

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3. Pedro Henrique P. Braga, Katherine Hébert, Emma J. Hudgins, Eric R. Scott, Brandon P. M. Edwards, Luna L. Sánchez Reyes, Matthew J. Grainger, Vivienne Foroughirad, Friederike Hillemann, Allison D. Binley, Cole B. Brookson, Kaitlyn M. Gaynor, Saeed Shafiei Sabet, Ali Güncan, Helen Weierbach, Dylan G. E. Gomes, Lella Crystal (2023). Not just for programmers: How GitHub can accelerate collaborative and reproducible research in ecology and evolution. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 14 (6), 1364-1380.

   We present twelve practical strategies for using GitHub to enhance collaboration, reproducibility, and efficiency in ecology and evolution research, encouraging its wider adoption for more transparent and effective scientific workflows. We also highlight features that could be improved and tailoured for research development.

   Peer-reviewed publication   Preprint   PDF   Code

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4. Gabriel Khattar, Stephanie Vaz, Pedro Henrique P. Braga, Margarete Macedo, Luiz Felipe L. da Silveira (2022). Life history traits modulate the influence of environmental stressors on biodiversity: The case of fireflies, climate and artificial light at night. Diversity and Distributions. 28, 1820–1831.

   We show that climate and artificial light at night together shape firefly communities through life history traits and courtship signals, revealing their vulnerability to compositional shifts under escalating environmental stress, even within protected areas.

   Peer-reviewed publication   PDF   Data and Code

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5. Bertrand Fournier, Héctor Vázquez‐Rivera, Sylvie Clappe, Louis Donelle, Pedro Henrique P. Braga, Pedro Peres‐Neto (2020). The spatial frequency of climatic conditions affects niche composition and functional diversity of species assemblages: the case of Angiosperms. Ecology Letters. 23 (2), 254-264.

   We reveal that rare climatic conditions favor generalist angiosperm species and yield higher functional diversity in North American communities, highlighting the role of climate frequency in shaping ecological communities.

   Peer-reviewed publication   PDF   Data and Code

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6. Franciele P. Peixoto, Pedro Henrique P. Braga, Poliana Mendes (2018). A synthesis of ecological and evolutionary determinants of bat diversity across spatial scales. BMC Ecology. 18 (1), 18.

   Our review shows that bats’ unique flight, dispersal, and functional traits shape their diversity across multiple scales. However, research gaps—especially at the landscape and metacommunity levels—highlight the need for integrative, multi-scale approaches to better understand bats’ ecological and evolutionary patterns.

   Peer-reviewed publication   PDF

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7. Franciele P. Peixoto, Pedro Henrique P. Braga, Marcus V. Cianciaruso, José Alexandre F. Diniz‐Filho, Daniel Brito (2014). Global patterns of phylogenetic beta diversity components in bats. Journal of Biogeography. 41, 762-772.

   We demonstrate that bats exhibit strong east–west hemisphere phylogenetic differentiation primarily driven by lineage turnover. Their high dispersal ability generally reduces turnover between adjacent regions, unless environmental barriers impose distinct phylogenetic filtering.

   Peer-reviewed publication   PDF  

• More on my Google Scholar

Education

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Teaching

I have formal training in active learning strategies (most recently from SALTISE at Dawson College and Concordia University), and have assisted in the teaching of undergraduate-level courses, and developed and instructed graduate-level workshops. Below are some highlights:

Assisted Teaching

• Biostatistics (BIOL322, both in English and in French), in 2023 and 2018, at Concordia University.
• Introduction to Biology (BIOL201), in 2022, at Concordia University.
• Fundamentals of Nutrition (BIOL203), in 2018, at Concordia University.
• Séminaire en écologie et analyses des données (BIO3500, in French), in 2016, at Université du Québec à Montréal.
• Biostatística (in Portuguese), in 2012, at Universidade Federal de Goiás.

Workshop Instruction and Development

Since 2016, I have regularly contributed to the QCBS R Workshop Series, both remotely and in-person at Concordia University, McGill University, and Université du Québec à Montréal. Across multiple sessions, I developed and delivered workshops on:

• Loading and manipulating data in R
• Introduction to data visualization in R
• Programming in R
• Linear and generalized linear (mixed) models
• Multivariate and advanced multivariate analyses

• See more below