As the national animal of Madagascar, ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) are one of the country’s most recognized wildlife species. Ring-tailed lemurs are largely terrestrial and are adapted to live within the dry, arid climate of Madagascar’s southwest region. In addition, ring-tailed lemurs are grouped with vervet monkeys, baboons, certain macaque species, the Hanuman langur, and humans as among the most adaptable of the primate species (e.g. Gould et al., 1999; Hart and Sussman, 2005; Goodman et al., in press). However, this perception remains largely untested because research on this species has been conducted almost exclusively at only two well-protected, tamarind-dominated, gallery forest reserves with canopy densities of over 70% per km² (Sussman et al., in press). Moreover, over 90% of the remaining potential habitat for L. catta is a completely different kind of habitat-type, succulent and spiny xerophytic vegetation known as Didiereaceae-Euphorbia bush forest. Most of these forests are in close proximity to villages (CIESIN, 2000).
         A site of typical L. catta habitat is the southern Androy (Cap Sainte-Marie) region, where I and other researchers have found through pilot research that the behaviors of L. catta appear to be very different from that which has been observed at the gallery forest sites. Notably, there appears to be only one L. catta troop per forest patch; villagers from several sites report that there are troops that travel to their private forests and the government protected reserve seasonally from unknown locations; these troops appear to be significantly dependent on resources that are integral to the lives of the local villagers (e.g. Opuntia sp., sacred forests, and crops). Last, environmental surveys at sites further east confirm similar patterns across many villages.
        Through this preliminary research, I have developed the following hypothesis: In contrast to what is perceived as typical for this species, a majority of ring-tailed lemurs inhabit resource-poor, risky environments that strain the limits of their behavioral and ecological repertoire. In consequence, these individuals are 1) subjected to significantly more “impoverished” environments than their gallery forest conspecifics, and they are 2) significantly dependent on resources cultivated by the local human inhabitants. In the spring of 2007, I will return to this site to further investigate this hypothesis.
        The primary methods I will use to conduct this research will be all-day follows on a troop of L. catta using focal animal and GPS sampling, and monthly interviews at a minimum of 11 nearby villages. In addition, two series of health assessments will be collected from L. catta individuals during two different seasons, and samples of consumed vegetation will be collected and dried each season for later nutritional analyses. Several institutions that are renowned for their conservation efforts in Madagascar will be collaborators of this project: the University of Antananarivo (for on-site support and student assistance), the Saint Louis Zoo (for health assessment data collection and laboratory nutritional content analyses), and the Missouri Botanical Gardens (for the identification of flora).