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Fall 2022 highlights

12/19/2022

As we're toward the end of the fall semester, looking back to how this semester turned out, we're happy to share some highlights ... There were some challenges, ups and downs, but overall it was productive..

Awards

Vero was awarded a Black and Indigenous Scholars Award from the American Society of Mammalogists and a renewal of the Train Faculty Fellowship from WWF
Nancia and Vero were awarded the grant “Lemur Fund” from Re:wild to support their research on lemur ecology in Madagascar’s rainforests

Publications

Anaid & colleagues documented the birth of an infant black-howler monkey in this paper published in Primates (Don't forget to check out the video in the supplementary information!
One of Nancia’s PhD chapter, investigating the robustness of plant-frugivore interaction network in a fragmented rainforest landscape, is published in the journal Conservation Biology.

A newborn howler monkey with its mama. Photo by Anaid Cardenas Navarrete

Graphical abstract of our recent paper in Ecology and Evolution.

A team led by Vero recently reported an unprecedented discovery of arboreal mouse lemurs sleeping in a burrow on the ground in the rainforest of Ranomafana, published in the journal Ecology and Evolution
We reviewed current knowledge about frugivory and seed dispersal in Madagascar in the book The New Natural History of Madagascar.

Others

Anaid passed her Qualifying Exam in December and is now a doctoral candidate
Hasina defended her Master's at the University of Antananarivo in November and then participated in a training on designing a research project in Kenya offered by the Tropical Biology Association
Hasina & Onja are wrapping up this month their participation in the program Global STEM Field Assistant by National Geographic Society but will continue collaborating.
Rindra was selected to participate in the iDiv Summer School in Leipzig, Germany in August to develop skills in molecular evolutionary biology in Biodiversity
We were happy to have Dr. Seheno Andriantsaralaza (University of Antananarivo) and Dr Denise Spaan (University of Veracruz) join us as Visiting Scholars this semester. We enjoyed the intellectual exchanges and looking forward for future collaborations.

Representative sample of the Razafindratsima lab, Fall 2023 at the lab's holiday party, celebrating our diversity with a diversity of food from different countries/regions. From left to right: Jade Tonos, Jessica Stubbs, Anaid Cardenas Navarrete, Kat Culbertson, Vero Ramananjato & Onja Razafindratsima.

Back from the field ...

8/31/2022

Some happy news to share from the past few months:
1) Awards:

Anaid was awarded a Latin American Student Field Research Award and a Primatological Conservation Inc grant.
Nancia received an Ikala STEM Small Grants for Research.
Both Rindra & Nancia were awarded a Duke Lemur Center’s Field Improvement Grant for Malagasy Students.
Vero was selected as a Philomathia Graduate Fellow in Environmental Sciences and a Rocca Fellow.

2) Publications:

Kat and her colleagues published a paper in Biotropica about the challenges of forest restoration in Madagascar
Onja & colleagues published a set of principles and practical suggestions for equitable fieldwork in biology, an article about the future of sub-Saharan Africa’s biodiversity in the face of climate and societal change, and about potential of social media to promote primate conservation at the local level (this last one co-authored with Nancia & Vero)
Anaid & colleagues published a paper about the global importance of Indigenous Peoples, their lands, and knowledge systems for saving the world’s primates from extinction

3) We recently came back from successful fieldwork. You may look at some of our field pictures here and read about Jade's most recent field update here. More updates soon..

Congratulations Vero!

4/29/2022

Congratulations Vero for being awarded a Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research!

Congratulations Anaid!

4/22/2022

Congratulations Anaid for being selected an International Peace Scholar by the Philanthropic Educational Organization!

New paper: How can academics contribute to biodiversity science?

3/11/2022

We have a new paper in Biotropica discussing the role academics plays to biodiversity science. "This effort stemmed from a symposium on this topic at the 2021 ATBC meeting and the lively discussions that followed. We consider some general principles that will help scientists engage in the most effective, ethically appropriate action to have long-term impacts and then present a set of general, practical suggestions of ways scientists can engage with broader systems to promote positive changes."

Congratulations Anaid & Nancia!

1/27/2022

Congratulations to lab member Anaid for being awarded a Tinker Field Research grant from the Center of Latin American Studies at UC Berkeley to conduct a preliminary study on patterns of movement, foraging and habitat use of howler monkeys in Mexico for her PhD

Congratulations to lab affiliate Nancia for being awarded a research grant from the Primate Conservation Inc to investigate the factors influencing lemur responses to edge effects in Madagascar as part of her PhD research project. And welcome to Berkeley! Nancia is currently at UC Berkeley as a Visiting Student Researcher

Welcome Jade!

1/10/2022

We're happy to welcome Dr. Jadelys Tonos as a postdoc in the lab. she recently graduated from Rice University with a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, investigating the drivers and consequences of animal foraging behavior on seed dispersal and plant community composition.

New paper: Individual-based frugivore-plant network

9/15/2021

We have a new paper in Oikos examining how space and variation between individual plants affect movement and visitation by frugivores foraging on individual fruiting plants.

Graphical abstract from Tonos et al. Oikos 2021

New paper: Seed dispersal limitation in forest edge habitats

9/15/2021

We have a new paper in the Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution investigating how differences between frugivore communities at the forest edge and interior habitats of a diverse tropical rainforest relate to patterns of animal-mediated seed dispersal and early seedling recruitment.

Main findings:

Lemur communities across the forest edge-interior gradient in this system showed the highest species richness and variability in body sizes at intermediate distances; the community of birds showed the opposite pattern for species richness.
Three large-bodied frugivores, known to be effective dispersers of large seeds, tended to avoid the forest edge.
The forest edges received a lower rate of animal-mediated seed dispersal compared to the interior habitats.
The seeds that were actively dispersed by animals in forest edge habitats were smaller in size than seeds dispersed in the forest interior. This pattern was found despite a similarity in seed size of seasonally fruiting adult trees and shrubs between the two habitats.
Despite these differences in dispersal patterns, we did not observe any differences in the rates of seedling recruitment or seed-size distribution of successful recruit species.

Forest edge in Ihofa Forest, Madagascar. Photo by O. Razafindratsima

New Paper: roles of forests & tree in poverty dynamics

8/23/2021

We have a new paper in the journal Forest Policy and Economics reviewing the links between forests / tree-based systems and poverty dynamics.

Highlights:

Evidence on four broad roles forests and tree-based systems play in household poverty dynamics reviewed
Forests and tree-based systems shape household poverty dynamics through the production of both goods and ecosystem services
The most commonly reported role is to maintain households at a steady level of wellbeing
Negative forest externalities can maintain or move households into poverty
Addressing gender disparities can contribute to long-term poverty reduction goals

Tree canopy in Ranomafana National Park. Photo by Vero Ramananjato.

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