We were also getting our feet wet with polishing our focal follow and scan sampling protocols of the resident lemur groups in the area, with each field team member playing a different role in the process (GPS tracking, data recording, lemur locating, plant identification, and feeding-tree tagging). Finally, in August of 2025, we welcomed the GPS collaring team, led by veterinarian Haja, with extensive experience collaring lemurs all over Madagascar. His veterinary team, accompanied by representatives from CVB, Madagascar National Parks (MNP), and CAFF/CORE (Malagasy research oversight committee), were successful in capturing and affixing GPS collars to six lemurs at Akaka (four E. rubriventer and two E. rufifrons). These collars will be used to record GPS locations and acceleration events over 24-hour periods, allowing us to measure daily and nightly travel distance, activity rates, and Autocorrelated Kernel Density Estimation (AKDE) of home ranges across spatial and temporal scales.

Furthermore, we have successfully mapped the burn boundary in the northern portion of the field site using our GPSs. This mapping allows us to delineate the unburned area from the burned area, compare vegetation structure inside and outside the burned zone, and plan future sampling and monitoring within this boundary.​

Unfortunately, we have documented several threats to biodiversity during our fieldwork. These include fire impacts, including substantial vegetation loss, canopy thinning, and reduced ground as well as canopy cover. We also recorded signs of human activity, including novel footpaths, cut vegetation, and active gold mining holes. Additionally, the site shows a high abundance of invasive species, most notably strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum). We will continue to document these ongoing threats as our study continues.
​
We are officially approaching our twenty-ninth expedition, with the hope of continuing this study to the end of the year. I could not be happier with the progress we have made and can’t wait to see what we ultimately discover! It has been a pleasure to be a guest in this unique and magical place, surrounded by some of the most extraordinary wildlife and people. ​

​Tana
Up in the sky, after 32 hours of travel, I opened the airplane window to a pitch-black night. On the ground, you could barely see any lights, just the occasional orange moon-shaped glows of slash-and-burn agriculture. I landed at Antananarivo, the “city of a thousand soldiers,” by midnight and dragged myself through Immigration and Customs until 1:30 AM. On my way out, a smiling man who had been waiting for me all this time received me with my name written on a piece of paper and helped me get my luggage on the car. We tried to exchange a few words, but it soon became clear that he only spoke Malagasy and that my French was much worse than I could remember. But we managed to find our way through choppy words and gestures, and he dropped me off at my hotel in the city for a well-deserved rest.
​
The next morning, I went to explore the city. The streets of Tana seem frozen in time in many ways. Maybe it’s the old Renault 4s and the Citroen 2CVs that fill the streets, or the brick-pitched-roof houses built all together, or the people wearing fedoras and semiformal suits. The city gives you a feeling like everything is a lively market. A woman piles up mangoes and lychees in small pyramids next to dry fish, while another one tries on lambas of every color and negotiates the price. It doesn’t take long before I hear a word that will define my position in this country: “Bonjour Vazaha!” It means foreigner/white person, and it’s used regularly by people in the streets to call my attention. People crowd the sidewalks selling all kinds of stuff next to each other: chickens, fruits, pans, clothes, plastics, crafts. An old lady is selling a small bucket of roasted peanuts. Another man extends a bandana on the floor and sells two used belts, and an alarm clock. Kids carrying kids don’t sell anything but extend their hand squishing their fingers together as if to catch a drop of rain.

​After two days and several car breakdowns, we finally made it to Ranomafana. It’s a small town next to a wide river, and it got its name, “hot water”, from the nearby hot springs. Many people know it only as an addition to the national park, but for my students from different regions of Madagascar and myself, it’s become a fond familiar place. I feel happy when I’m recognized and greeted at the local hotely (small Malagasy restaurant) after not being there for a while. It has taken me several attempts and a lot of laughs to learn how to ask for the dish that I want; sometimes resorting to charades of the animal I’m attempting to eat.

​The Camp
My current research is largely focused on how forests regenerate in fragmented landscapes. The remaining forest surrounding regenerating forest fragments can influence regeneration outcomes directly, since they are the seed sources, but also indirectly, since they host the seed-dispersing species that can bring seeds to the regenerating sites. So, this means I work mostly outside of protected areas and have to cover vast extensions of land to reach the forest fragments; which means lots of hiking.
We started the hike on a spicy, bright sunny day and no shade nearby. My Vazaha identity is further reinforced with my REI outfit from head to toe, which contrasts starkly with everyone else’s. I feel over the top when I have to take off my boots to wade through the river while everyone else passes by barefoot or in flipflops flawlessly. I feel even more of a Vazaha when I’m all the way on the back of the group, struggling to carry my backpack under the scorching sun, while men from other villages swiftly pass me by, each carrying four jerry cans of toaka gasy (distilled liqueur artisanally produced in the mountains and sold in the city) for several kilometers.

​When the sun set, we went to greet the elders of the village. The room was small and smoky and was only lit by the cooking fire in the corner. The floor was covered in palm mats, and the nine of us sat shoulder to shoulder either on the floor, the 10-cm tall stools, or the bed of the elder. I uttered the few words in Malagasy that I know. “Faly mahafantatra anao”: I’m happy to meet you. The rest of the conversation moved by through shadows and faces without me understanding. Kava, our field coordinator, translated to me that they were very happy to have us and to bring work to the village. I was also very happy we could be of help. They brought us voanjobory (a type of round bean that tastes like peanuts) and rice for dinner, and we went to bed.
​
The hike the next day started at the break of dawn on a foggy morning. It was going to be a long day since we needed to hike for 5 hours up the hill and 4 on our way down. As soon as we started the climb, it started pouring. Rainforests have very shallow soils, so once all the soil has been washed out, all you have left is clay. And when it’s raining and with nothing to grab on to, you slide down like a penguin in reverse. But after the miserable clay climb, things got much better. Ancient trees made a roof over our heads, and with the fog and the raindrops falling, it all felt peaceful. We came upon a group of red-fronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons) who didn’t seem to be much bothered by us. I love how they jump from tree to tree feet first. In Mexico, where I’m from, all the monkeys swing between branches; it’s all about the arms and the prehensile tails. But here is all about the legs and the feet. They jump speedily from tree to tree, grabbing the trunk between their feet, while they grunt at us like arboreal pigs.

​We finally made it to the plot, and we started preparing the equipment. I pulled out my slingshot to install the climbing system on a tree for the arboreal camera and began shooting. Some of the guides were looking at me, trying to understand what was going on. After a few attempts, I sat down to rest. Kava and one of the guides exchanged some words, and the next thing I knew was that the guide was climbing the tree barefoot and with no equipment, and passed the weight attached to the string to the other side of the branch (essentially what I was trying to do with the slingshot). Once again, the Vazaha with her useless equipment.

​None of this would have been possible without our amazing field team and the landowners who have so kindly opened the doors of their homes to us. Thank you Kava, Prisca, Claude, Nirintsoa, and the thirty-some techs, guides and cooks, whose names deserve more space than a footnote.

I was stationed at Centre ValBio for the majority of my stay, where we traveled to nearby forest patches in various stages of forest regeneration. During our first day at CVB, we went on an amazing tour of the rainforest, where we saw many charismatic lemur species, adorable red-tailed mongooses, and an impressively camouflaged satanic leaf-tailed gecko. I loved visiting the forest and witnessing the amazing biodiversity and vast number of endemic species. In the following days, we also saw a tree boa and a beautiful comet moth around CVB.

After returning to CVB, we embarked on a few lemur following trips, where we followed the Milne-Edward’s sifaka and the red-bellied lemurs. I had a lot of fun observing the lemurs’ behavior and running through the forest trying to follow them. We rounded out our trip by visiting Anja National Park, which was an incredible dry forest with breathtaking mountainous views. It was home to large groups of ring-tailed lemurs and many chameleons of a variety of colors. This was an incredible trip, and I am very grateful to Professor Razafindratsima and Sabine for organizing it. I learned so much, both from exploring the rainforest and from the field team and other researchers at CVB.

​Armed with robust rubber boots, a plethora of ambiguous antibiotics, and an inexplicable sense of loyalty to the ecosystems and lemurs I was yet to meet, I was ready for anything. The first week in Antananarivo was a vibrant and kinetic rush of unfamiliarity and culture. Scouring the teeming markets for field supplies, absorbing my first words of Malagasy, and ambling along the restless streets was exhilarating. Most exuberant, was having the momentous privilege to experience lab member Vero’s wedding. Dancing in effervescent swirls of Malagasy family members, consuming heaps of aromatic ravitoto, and reveling in the cultural exuberance of the wedding traditions was a singular experience of exceptional joy. The entangled vibrance of Antananarivo was a sensorial introduction to Madagascar and only a nascent glance into the incredible country I was soon to explore. 

While driving to Ranomafana, the boisterous contours of the city melted into expansive verdant hills, imbricating agricultural fields, and meandering brown streams. The landscape was punctuated by lines of laboring zebus, rich piles of fresh bricks, intimate huddles of market sellers, opinionated discourses among geese, and clusters of enthralled children. 

After a few days gathering our supplies and coordinating our research objectives, we set off through banana fields and up arboraceous mountains to our campsite to begin the real work embedded within the forest. 

Meals consisted of rice and beans, showers were taken in the river's embrace, purpose was found in the lemurs, and community thrived among the people and biota around us. The endless onslaught of news cycles, inundation of messages and emails, and perennial duty of academic and professional tasks faded into the immediacy and immensity of the forest. The profound reduction in external stimulus honed my abilities as a conservation practitioner and allowed my somatic and cerebral capabilities to unify in the research, questions, and wildlife that enveloped me. ​

Everyday was met with a multitude of novel lessons, inspiring curiosities, interminable giggles, scientific inquiries, lemur connections, persistent leeches, and legions of rice and beans. Never before had I possessed so few material effects and external comforts, and yet felt so fulfilled. My mind was kinetic with research ideas, empirical conquests, and experimental propositions. After lemur follows, we would march to the lab (a makeshift arrangement of tarp and sticks) and dive into preparing fecal samples with multiple treatments to delineate how the lemur microbiome affects seed germination rates. Conducting innovative science in the middle of the forest truly instilled the importance of embracing constant agility, improvement, and adaptation in an environmental arena of finite resources and unlimited stochasticity. As an emerging conservation practitioner, these experiences fortified my scientific problem-solving dexterity and imprinted an enduring zeal for advancing research on the front lines of conservation.

Beyond catalyzing the counters of my intellectual prowess, the endogenous connections and palpable kingship that developed with the lemurs and fellow field technicians were transformative. Camp members and field technicians became an instant troop of unwavering loyalty. Hundreds of hours spent in the forest welded us together interminably. Picking leeches off each other, sharing meals under the canopy, teaching plant varieties, exchanging languages, and collectively immersing in the centripetal intrigue of the lemurs infused every lemur follow with an immensity of supportive reciprocity. Back at camp, the enveloping sense of community transcended challenging conditions and crystallized into interrelational wisdoms, connections, and understandings. Playing dominos with fierce determination, boldly pioneering novel food concoctions, piling around the fire, and passing jugs of steaming burnt rice water around the table were liminal moments of enduring warmth.

Punctuating our time at camp were both restful and exuberant sojourns at the ValBIo Research Station. There, we extracted DNA by processing our fecal samples utilizing advanced laboratory techniques. In the lab, I sharped my pipetting precision, gained confidence mixing fragile chemicals, and advanced my ability to curate immaculate lab playlists to foster the ideal musical feng shui for science. Spending afternoons in the lab, meals with impassioned researchers, and evenings organizing supplies and trading lemur stories with volunteers further reinforced my avidity and esteem for the imperative research we were conducting. From skillfully collecting lemur fecal deposits from the forest floor to methodically purifying and extracting genetic information from samples in the lab, I was developing a comprehensive understanding of advancing conservation research. 

Working in a rainforest that rains a lot is itself also very challenging. One day, we had a heavy rainstorm on our way to our campsite in Valohoaka. The rain was so strong that it soaked my rain boots and made my feet swell. I also had many leeches stuck to my feet, which was very unpleasant. But I did not let that ruin my mood, because I knew that rain was essential for this tropical forest ecosystem. I embraced the adventure and enjoyed every moment!