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New paper

8/30/2023

PhD students Veronarindra Ramananjato & Nancia Raoelinjanakolona, along with colleagues, have a new publication in the American Journal of Anthropology, about a toolkit to improve data quality of multi-researcher datasets for analyzing morphological variation in mouse lemurs:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.24836

Photograph by Veronarindra Ramananjato

Highlights (copied from the article)

Morphological variation is commonly used to infer environmental adaptations and phylogenetic relationships in animal taxa, but multi-researcher datasets can hamper analyses due to inter-observer biases.
Our filtering pipeline markedly improved data quality for downstream analyses and highlights key steps in data quality assessment for generating reliable results.
Across species, mouse lemurs are sexually dimorphic (with larger females), do not follow Rensch's rule for sexual size dimorphism or Bergmann's rule (as larger mouse lemur taxa live in warmer and wetter climates) but are concordant with Allen's rule with regard to having shorter tails in colder environments.

Congratulations Anaid & Vero!

8/16/2023

Congratulations Anaid for being awarded a research grant from Re:wild and Vero for a best student presentation at ATBC conference!

Spring 2023 highlights

5/9/2023

Looking back at our achievements this semester, here are some of the highlights ... now we're off to fieldwork

Awards

Anaid and Nancia were awarded research grants from The Rufford Foundation for their PhD projects in Mexico and Madagascar, respectively
Kat and Vero were selected as Rocca fellows by the Center for African Studies
Rindra was awarded a Primate Action Fund grant
Vero was selected as an International Peace Scholar by the Philanthropic Educational Organization, and received Outstanding GSI Award for her excellent work as a graduate student instructor in IB.

Varecia variegata editorum in Ranomafana National Park. Photo by Onja Razafindratsima

Publications

Onja and colleagues reviewed the importance of regenerating forests for primates in anthropogenic landscapes in this book chapter

Others

Kat passed her Qualifying Exam in April and is now a doctoral candidate
Diary Randriamora joined our group as a mentee through the National Geographic Society STEM Field Assistant Program
Rindra Nantenaina, a PhD student at the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar spent five weeks as a Visiting Student in the lab in Berkeley.

Representative members and friends of the lab, Spring 2023. From left to right: Asher, Mamy-Fy Rakotondrainibe, Anaid Cardenas Navarrete, Kat Culbertson, Rindra Nantenaina, Jade Tonos, Ella Matsuda, Onja Razafindratsima, Kova

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.

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