Lemur - Research

Research

Similarities that lemurs share with anthropoid primates, such as diet and social organization, along with their own unique traits, have made lemurs the most heavily studied of all mammal groups on Madagascar. Research often focuses on the link between ecology and social organization, but also on their behavior and morphophysiology (the study of anatomy in relation to function). Studies of their life-history traits, behavior and ecology help understanding of primate evolution, since they are thought to share similarities with ancestral primates.

Lemurs have been the focus of monographic series, action plans, field guides, and classic works in ethology. However, few species have been thoroughly studied to date, and most research has been preliminary and restricted to a single locality. Only recently have numerous scientific papers been published to explain the basic aspects of behavior and ecology of poorly known species. Field studies have given insights on population dynamics and evolutionary ecology of most genera and many species. Long-term research focused on identified individuals is in its infancy and has only been started for a few populations. However, learning opportunities are dwindling as habitat destruction and other factors threaten the existence of lemur populations across the island.

Lemurs are mentioned in sailors' voyage logs as far back as 1608 and in 1658 that at least seven lemur species were described in detail by the French merchant, Étienne de Flacourt, who may also have been the only westerner to see and chronicle the existence of a giant (now extinct) lemur, which he called the tretretretre. Around 1703 merchants and sailors began bringing lemurs back to Europe, at which time James Petiver, an apothecary in London, described and illustrated the mongoose lemur. Starting in 1751, the London illustrator George Edwards began describing and illustrating some lemur species, of which a few were included in various editions of Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus. In the 1760s and 1770s, French naturalists Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon and Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton began describing the anatomy of several lemur species. The first traveling naturalist to comment on lemurs was Philibert Commerçon in 1771, although it was Pierre Sonnerat who recorded a greater variety of lemur species during his travels.

During the 19th century, there was an explosion of new lemur descriptions and names, which later took decades to sort out. During this time, professional collectors gathered specimens for museums, menageries, and cabinets. Some of the major collectors were Johannes Hildebrandt and Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major. From these collections, as well as increasing observations of lemurs in their natural habitats, museum systematists including Albert Günther and John Edward Gray continued to contribute new names for new lemur species. However, the most notable contributions from this century includes the work of Alfred Grandidier, a naturalist and explorer who devoted himself to the study of Madagascar's natural history and local people. With the help of Alphonse Milne-Edwards, most of the diurnal lemurs were illustrated at this time. However, lemur taxonomic nomenclature took its modern form in the 1920s and 1930s, being standardized by Ernst Schwarz in 1931.

Although lemur taxonomy had developed, it was not until the 1950s and 1960s that the in-situ (or on-site) study of lemur behavior and ecology began to blossom. Jean-Jacques Petter and Arlette Petter-Rousseaux toured Madagascar in 1956 and 1957, surveying many of its lemur species and making important observations about their social groupings and reproduction. In 1960, the year of Madagascar's independence, David Attenborough introduced lemurs to the West with a commercial film. Under the guidance of John Buettner-Janusch, who founded the Duke Lemur Center in 1966, Alison Jolly traveled to Madagascar in 1962 to study the diet and social behavior of the ring-tailed lemur and Verreaux's sifaka at Berenty Private Reserve. The Petters and Jolly spawned a new era of interest in lemur ecology and behavior and were shortly followed by anthropologists such as Alison Richard, Robert Sussman, Ian Tattersall, and many others. Following the political turmoil of the mid-1970s and Madagascar's revolution, field studies resumed in the 1980s, thanks in part to the renewed involvement of the Duke Lemur Center under the direction of Elwyn Simons and the conservation efforts of Patricia Wright. In the decades that followed, huge strides have been made in lemur studies and many new species have been discovered.

Ex situ research (or off-site research) is also popular among researchers looking to answer questions that are difficult to test in the field. For example, efforts to sequence the genome of the gray mouse lemur will help researchers understand which genetic traits set primates apart from other mammals and will ultimately help understand what genomic traits set humans apart from other primates. One of the foremost lemur research facilities is the Duke Lemur Center (DLC) in Durham, North Carolina. It maintains the largest captive lemur population outside of Madagascar, which it maintains for non-invasive research and captive breeding. Many important research projects have been carried out there, including studies of lemur vocalizations, basic locomotor research, the kinematics of bipedalism, the effects of social complexity transitive reasoning, and cognition studies involving a lemur's ability to organize and retrieve sequences from memory. Other facilities, such as the Lemur Conservation Foundation, located near Myakka City, Florida, have also hosted research projects, such as one that looked at lemurs' ability to preferentially select tools based on functional qualities.