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Ambi: Madagascar Dawn from Lemur

If you want to understand an animal and the role it plays in its local ecosystem, you have to know that creature’s behavior intimately. And if the animal is a lemur one of Madagascar’s tree-dwelling primates, that means a lot of data gathering and look upwards. Welcome to Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries - a glimpse of the world of science from the inside.

“There are several different types of data that we collect. The first is called focal animal data, and what that means is that every day we select one animal within the group that we're studying, and we follow that animal from dawn to dusk. “

Summer Arrigo-Nelson is a research scientist with the Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments.

“Throughout the day what we collect is at five-minute intervals, we record the activity of the animal. So whether she's resting or grooming or feeding, and if it's feeding we'll also record what the plant species and the plant part, whether it be fruits or leaves or flowers, that they're feeding on. We also record the animal's height within the tree, his or her location in the trail system -- because that allows us to track the ranging of the group over time. And we also record information on who the animals are that are nearest to the focal animal. We call those their nearest neighbors. And what that data helps us do is to look at who the animal is spending time with, who the animal is comfortable feeding in proximity to. Now, we also collect data called continuous data and that means we'll record the time when the activity began, and then we'll also record a stop time. And that gives us an actual duration of the length of the activity.”

By keeping such detailed observations, researchers can notice trends in animal behavior which may be effected by ecological changes, such as logging. Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries are made possible by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.