A shared landscape: spatial and temporal patterns in livestock and dog presence within a protected tropical dry forest lemur habitat

What is it about?

Monitoring remote tropical forests is challenging yet necessary to further understand how interactions between conservation efforts and societal needs affect the protection of threatened primate species. This is particularly important in Madagascar, where most lemur species are endangered, and people live around the borders of protected areas and make their income from livestock._x000D_ _x000D_ In this study, we used acoustic recording taken throughout a year to listen for sounds of livestock, wood chopping, and dogs barking. Each of these sounds represent the presence of domestic animals or activities that may threaten the lemurs. We recorded in a protected area in southwest Madagascar and compared how intensity of these sounds differed between seasons, types of forests, and regions with different levels of protection, some allow moderate activity and some with complete exclusion. Our goal was to measure these threats so that we can understand how they will impact the wildlife and forests. _x000D_ _x000D_ We found that livestock and wood chopping was occurring in areas where it was banned but in lower numbers then areas allowing moderate activity. Additionally, we found dog activity mostly at night, suggesting they are roaming the protected area without their owners and may, therefore, be hunting lemurs._x000D_ _x000D_ The data we collected in this study provides for the first time, to our knowledge, a measure of how much domestic animals are present in the protected area._x000D_

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