After nearly three months in Madagascar, I am back in Houston preparing to begin my second year of my PhD program at Rice. I am tired from fieldwork and long flights back but I am very grateful for my experiences at Maromizaha. While in the field, my team and I accomplished a good deal. We conducted a total of 54 surveys across our six transects sampling for lemur sightings. Additionally, we collected 8 weeks of sample deposit data from more than 170 seed traps. These data will be key as I explore and analyze my findings to shed light on how lemur communities differ in their species composition across protected, restored, and regenerating forest types and how seed dispersal dynamics differ across these habitats. Lemurs are crucial mediators for seed dispersal, which in turn has major impacts on forest tree communities and the overall health and resiliency of these ecosystems. My research seeks to understand how the relationship between these animals and these environmental processes operates in areas of ecological restoration where there are local efforts to recover damaged forests. When I set out in May to conduct my pilot study in Maromizaha, I tried to prepare myself to conduct rigorous research and build partnerships with local people and organizations. I was unsure of how successful I would be, particularly on the scientific research front, since Maromizaha represented a new research site both for myself and my lab group. In my own planning and conversations with my advisor and managers, I tried to temper my expectations of what would be feasible in these 12 weeks and made an effort to keep perspective about what success should look like one year into my graduate program. My time in Maromizaha was certainly challenging, having to learn many new things on the fly, adapt to rainy conditions in the field, and manage a team of adults for the first time. Looking back, I am pleased with the journey of this expedition and the results. My team and I established out data collection methods quickly and conducted our work thoroughly. Outside of scientific metrics, I am proud of the relationships that I have built with community partners. My presentation to GERP and VOI managers at the end of the field season was well-received by the leaders present and I appreciated their feedback and perspectives on research and management directions that were of interest to the community. I have a lot of work to do to build partnerships that are equitable and center my Malagasy collaborators and I know that I will make mistakes as I develop these relationships. I hope that I can build a rapport that encourages collaborators to point out my mistakes and allow me to correct them. As I detailed in my last post, I have so many people to thank for the success of this field season. The teams at GERP, VOI Maromizaha, VOI Fanantenana, and the Maromizaha Guide Association were not only crucial to making my work possible, but were incredibly kind and welcoming to me. My iconic field team made life in the forest comfortable and exciting, familiar and new all at once. People in the local community wherever I went including Antananarivo, Moramanga, Maromizaha, and Anevoka showed generous hospitality and patience as I bumbled around in a new country attempting to speak broken Malagasy and French. The team at MICET managed logistics and facilitated my permits and visa. Fidy my Malagasy tutor provided me a strong foundation before leaving to try my best to communicate with my hosts and partners. Jaona graciously supported our work at Maromizaha and contributed his expertise and humor. Amy and Michael dove into life and research in the field and embraced all of the ups and downs with enthusiasm. Dr. Amy Dunham provided invaluable advice and support through my preparation and execution of this trip. I was further bolstered by my great network of professors, colleagues, friends, and family in the US. Finally, I am grateful to Dr. Walter Loewenstern, who generously provided support for the Expanding Horizons Fellowship at Rice University that provided vital funding for me to complete my travel and research. I feel so privileged to get the chance to work with such exceptional people in a remarkable place. These past months I have been able to wake up in a tent surrounded by thick rainforest and species found nowhere else on the planet. I look forward to returning to Maromizaha soon to continue my data collection and compare my results across seasonal changes that have major impacts on ecosystem processes.
In the meantime, I have another semester ahead where I hope to begin analyses of the data I collected during this trip. I also look forward to taking courses and seminars with my graduate colleagues and welcoming a new cohort of first-year students to the program. Until next time!
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Salama daholo (Hello everyone!)! Here in Maromizaha we are coming off of an especially rainy period and looking forward to some brief sunshine. I have two weeks remaining in Madagascar and my team and I are working hard to complete data collection for our projects. Day-to-day, we continue to collect samples from our seed traps, measure forest structure and plant variables, and survey transects across forest types for different lemur species. Our efforts feel like a culmination of the work I have done since I began graduate school to organize and plan this research. Maromizaha lies near the southern end of a larger corridor of intact habitat in eastern Madagascar, including some of the last remaining mature tropical rainforest in this global biodiversity hotspot. With increasing threats of forest loss and fragmentation, remaining tracts in Madagascar have been the focus of ecological research and conservation efforts, often through the formation of national parks and other strict protected areas. Historically and continually, these efforts are largely driven by researchers, practitioners, and funders from wealthy countries in the Global North. This pattern is common across tropical regions rich in biodiversity and natural resources and perpetuates neocolonial power dynamics and relationships. Local communities that are most reliant on tropical ecosystems and who are most impacted by their management are routinely ignored or treated as minor stakeholders in issues of scientific research and biodiversity conservation. Malagasy conservation leaders have advocated for concrete changes to these dynamics, including support for local sustainable livelihoods and empowering community resource management through capacity-building. When considering where I wanted to establish collaborations and conduct research for my graduate degree, I wanted to identify and act on opportunities to partner with local researchers and communities. I was excited to connect with stakeholders at Maromizaha, which is managed differently than many other protected areas in Madagascar. For one, the research, conservation, tourism, and resource use at this site is managed by Malagasy people. Maromizaha has several co-managing partners. GERP is a research and conservation organization in the country that works in several areas throughout Madagascar. Additionally, portions of the forest are managed by natural resources councils made up of local community members. Parts of the site where I have conducted my work are managed by VOI Maromizaha and VOI Fanantenana. All of these organizations work to not only protect areas of existing old-growth rainforest but to also establish areas of ecological restoration and build sustainable livelihoods for community members living in and around Maromizaha. During my own work at Maromizaha over the past months, I have been incredibly fortunate to work every day with folks from these groups as well as other excellent scientists and conservationists from Madagascar and the United States. At GERP, I have received incredible support from Dr. Jonah Ratsimbazafy, president of the organization and a world-renowned researcher and advocate for the environments and people of Madagascar. Jonah has been generous with his time and efforts to connect me with collaborators and the local GERP team at Maromizaha and will serve on my Rice doctoral committee as an external member. On the ground at the site, I have had the pleasure of collaborating with an excellent team including Andry, Randria, Rova, Mammy, and Sissi that have been crucial in organizing logistical support and connecting me with the many community members who have assisted my work. My research would not be possible without these committed individuals. The leaders and members of VOI Maromizaha and VOI Fanantenana have also been very welcoming and collaborative during my time here. With the help of the GERP team, I met with leaders from these community groups prior to beginning my research and explained my interests and proposed activities. I appreciate their openness to my work and invitations to conduct research on their land. I look forward to meeting with community leaders next week to present the data collection and preliminary results. I will also use this meeting as an opportunity to propose future work at this site and solicit feedback on how I can align my research and engagement with community priorities. While I have been at Maromizaha, I have spent most of my time with camping and working in the forest with my field team. Among the members have been local cooks and camp guards who have joined the crew for two weeks at a time. Their work has been crucial to living safely and comfortably in the forest through their maintenance of camp, preparing and managing meals, keeping warm fires at night, and making trips to recharge electronics in town. I have also received crucial assistance from many local porters who have helped transport food and equipment to and from the forest camp over the course of my time here. The rest of my field team has remained with me for the nearly every day for the months that I have spent here and become close friends. My two guides, Tojo and Railson, have been invaluable research assistants who have kept me safe in during research activities and provided insight into the workings of the forest based on their extensive experience living and working here. They enthusiastically support my work and collect data with me as a cohesive team along with the final member of our group, Lova. Studying for his Master’s degree in Botany at the Univeristé d’Antananarivo, Lova joined the expedition as my local partner with an interest in studying the community of rainforest plants that provide food for the lemurs of Maromizaha. Lova and I have worked closely together to find alignment between our interests and assist on one another’s projects to integrate them but support his independence in pursuing graduate research. The four of us have spent many hours collecting seeds, searching for lemurs, and recording data as well as playing cards and sharing music in camp. My collaborations with my team have been a highlight of my field season at Maromizaha and I am so grateful to them for their effort and comradery. I look forward to working with them again during future research trips. Over the past few weeks, I have also had the great opportunity to work with new additions to the field team. My advisor, Dr. Amy Dunham, and two recent bachelor’s graduates from Rice University, Amy Kuriakose and Michael Calhoun, arrived in early July to assist with my projects and explore the feasibility of new projects sampling pollinating insects across the forest types at Maromizaha. It has been lovely to share with them the work I have done and the many great local collaborators at this site. Additionally, Jaona Ranaivo, a representative from the environmental ministry of the Malagasy government, joined us to evaluate our work and provide his expertise in pollination. His perspectives and support for our work were a welcome addition to our team and greatly appreciated.
My first foray into field research as a graduate student has only been possible because of the incredible partners I have worked with throughout this process. I am continuously learning how to be strong collaborator who can bolster the incredible work that Malagasy scientists and communities do to create resilient and sustainable ecosystems. I hope I can continue to improve and foster the relationships I have begun building during my time at Maromizaha as well as grow new ones during my graduate career and beyond. I am looking forward to traveling home soon to see my family, partner, and friends, but I'm eager to return to Madagascar and the people I have met here soon. Hi all! It’s wild that I have spent nearly 2 months in Madagascar on my first field season as a graduate student. In that time, I have met some incredible collaborators and friends and gotten my research projects off the ground, all while adjusting to the cold, rain, and occasional land leeches that Maromizaha Forest has to offer. Despite these challenges, spending time and working here has been amazing. I largely spend my days in the forest on several major research activities that all contribute to my larger interests in understanding major ecosystem processes involving interactions between animals and plants across different forest types. One of the major components of this work is assessing the dispersal of seeds from tree and liana species. Many plant species, particularly in Madagascar, are able to reproduce with the help of frugivorous (fruit-eating) animals like birds and lemurs. To assess possible seed dispersal, my team and I have set up mesh bags throughout our forest transects to trap falling fruits, seeds, and fecal deposits from animals. We check these traps weekly for samples and have found loose fruits and seeds from a variety of tree and liana species as well as scat from rodents, birds, and lemurs. We also evaluate the phenology (timing) of flowering and fruiting of hundreds of plant individuals from dozens of species on our survey transects to evaluate how these important processes change over the season and their possible influence on the samples we collect in our seed traps. I am excited to continue my work and to have my advisor, Dr. Amy Dunham, as well as research assistants from Rice to join me for a couple of weeks at Maromizaha. Setting up new projects and building my team and collaborations has been challenging but so rewarding. I have learned a lot both about this incredible ecosystem and how to be a better field scientist through my experiences here so far and I am excited to share more through future posts! Hello everyone! Welcome to my informal (and likely inconsistent) blog where I detail my professional and scientific activities! This will be an evolving space that may very well change, but for now I will be posting updates about my graduate research in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program at Rice University in Houston, Texas. I have just completed my first year of graduate school where I moved to Texas, took some courses, and situated myself within the community at Rice. I have been very fortunate to have an overall positive experience my first year, due in large part to the great group of people I get to work with. These include my fellow graduate students at Rice, especially my EEB cohort tackling this new experience with me, and my advisor Dr. Amy Dunham. I have spent a large amount of time my first year preparing for my first season of fieldwork in eastern Madagascar. I am working in Maromizaha rainforest to study biodiversity and the interactions between lemurs and plant communities across different management schemes. I will expand on this research more in upcoming blog posts as ramp up my data collection in the coming months. I have been in Madagascar for one week now and leave for the forest camp tomorrow to begin collecting data on lemur and tree diversity in the forest. I am so grateful for the collaborations that make this research possible. This forest is jointly managed by several organizations. GERP is a Malagasy research organization devoted to the study and protection of lemurs. VOI Maromizaha and VOI Fanantenana are two local community natural resource management groups that monitor and protect portions of the forest. I am also collaborating with Lova, a Malagasy graduate student studying botany. I am also very appreciative of MICET, a Malagasy organization that assists with research and logistic coordination, and the Expanding Horizons Fund at Rice University for supporting my research season. I look forward to sharing more about my work (as well as some photos from the forest) in future posts. Veloma! |
AuthorI'm an ecologist and conservation biologist pursing my PhD. Archives
August 2022
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