Field Notes #16: Experiencing Madagascar through research

Text by Ian Y Chan

I had an amazing time conducting research in Madagascar, and immersing myself in the rainforest helped me better visualize the organisms and ecological processes I had learned about. Along with Andrea, another undergraduate student, I went to Madagascar as part of a project studying the impacts of landscape structure on forest regeneration. The Geist and Rosberg Grant under the Center for African Studies funded my specific subproject, which focused on comparing the efficacy of various biodiversity survey methods (camera traps vs. Sherman traps vs. transect surveys) on various taxa. In addition, I sought to assess the consistency of camera traps within a single site, which can help determine the optimal number to deploy.

Ring-tailed mongoose (Galidia elegans)

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.

Milne-Edwards's sifaka (Propithecus edwardsi)

Satanic leaf-tailed gecko (Uroplatus phantasticus)

Brown mouse lemur (Microcebus rufus)

In addition to day trips, we also camped at Ranomena for several days, which was a beautiful primary forest. Although it was my first time camping, Andrea and the field team gave great guidance and ensured the trip went as smoothly as possible. Each day in Ranomena, we conducted three bird surveys where we listened for birdsong along a transect route. For the camera trap subproject, we set up four ground and four arboreal cameras to run for a month. We also set up four ground and four arboreal Sherman traps each night, and we checked them in the morning for small mammals. It was a very valuable experience learning from the field team how to conduct biodiversity surveys, especially setting up camera traps, given how much camera-trapping data I work with in the lab. We also went on a night walk, where we saw many tiny tree frogs and fascinating arthropods. 

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.

Madagascan moon moth (Argema mittrei)

Frog