Dispatches From The Field

24 May, 2003 -- Luke Dollar

There is only so much time away from the forest a biologist can stand. Last week, Martel and I headed up to the Ankarafantsika forest to check on our ongoing research, the field site, and the local community. For the past few months, Harilala (a Malagasy graduate student with our team) has been working on her Master’s degree research. Harilala studies the micromammals of Ankarafantsika. She’s specifically compiling a biodiversity database on the insectivores and rodents of the Park. Once she knows the distribution and relative abundance of micromammals in our study areas, we’ll compare those to our data on fossa diet. That will help us uncover whether fossa prey preferentially on micromammals relative to the rest of the potential prey items in the forest. We’ve collected and analyzed more than 1200 fossa scats and have learned that they eat almost everything in the forest with a heartbeat. The next step is to see if the proportion of micromammals in their diet is higher or lower than their relative abundance in the forest.

The Ambodimanga (Malagasy for “under the mango trees”) campsite is run by the local village women’s group (EZAKA). It is our base of operations for the Ankarafantsika research, conservation, and development projects. This year, the village is renovating the camp refectoire, expanding it so that we can incorporate more scientists on site at briefings, mealtimes, and for lab work. EZAKA will also be building the first bungalows on site over the next few months. That’ll allow the local villages to profit more for the biodiversity-based research and ecotourism in the region.