One Cubic Foot Madagascar: The Search for Biodiversity

Zoo Society Director of Programming and Conservation Action Tom Snyder will be documenting the team’s findings as One Cubic Foot Madagascar continues.There is this notion that in a rainforest, or an area as biodiverse as Madagascar that the amount of wildlife is bursting at the seams. The reality is much different. You have to search for proper habitats, even when you are surrounded by over 80,000 acres of national park, like here at Ranomafana National Park.

In the last 5 days, the Seneca Park Zoo Society’ One Cubic Foot team has hiked nearly 100 miles of trails looking for the perfect habitat to find a One Cubic Foot space that is representative of the most biodiversity found within the National Park boundary.

This is no small task, as most of the forest here is only 50 years old at its oldest. Forest succession is a lengthy process that begins with mosses and grasses covering the land. Pioneering and fast growing trees fill in spaces, and only then does it have the chance for the next stage, the climax forest community. A climax community means there is no net annual accumulation of organic matter. In other words, the forest reaches equilibrium. Plants, trees, and wildlife that die off are replaced by the same species. In these climax communities there is wide biodiversity that features a complex food chain.

Throughout our stay here, most areas we have hiked are in an intermediate stage of forest succession. Few areas have large trees, with a lot of fern species, and small epiphytic growth on the trees. Only 50 years in, the soil composition is gaining nutrients, fruiting trees are expanding ranges, and small habitats are stabilizing and growing.

When we are looking for habitats, we are looking for a few key things:

  • Shelter – A good shelter will give wildlife a place to hide and sleep, safety from predators, and an area out of the weather.
  • Food and water – Just like humans, all animals need food and water for survival.
  • Space – Space is needed to obtain food, water, and attract mates.
  • Access to sunlight – This has been a larger problem than we anticipated on this trip. With only one day of party cloudy weather, the rest of the time has been filled with rain, cold weather, and climate that is much more suitable for couches, comforters, and movies.

Luckily on Sunday we found a microhabitat that is thriving with all of the above. We placed the cube yesterday, and will be monitoring, collecting, and identifying animals starting today. Stay tuned on Twitter for further updates now that we have found our spot.

One Cubic Foot Madagascar Travel Log 3

Zoo Society Executive Director Pamela Reed Sanchez will be updating this travel log as One Cubic Foot Madagascar continues.Part Three: Meet Mahandry

This is Andrianarisoa Mahandry Hugues (we call him Ma-han’-dray).

Mahandry is a master’s student at University in Antananarivo, studying animal biology. His career goal is to be director of one of Madagascar’s National Parks. He is Malagasy (the word for someone who is native to Madagascar), and speaks fluent French and Malagasy, which of course no one on the team speaks.

One of the requirements for foreigners when conducting research in Madagascar is to have a Malagasy student participate in the project. One can’t get permission for research permits without agreeing to pay a stipend and the costs of the student’s participation. We are also required to pay the fees of the student’s research advisor, whom we will likely never meet.

Mahandry didn’t quite know what to think of the One Cubic Foot team, nor of the One Cubic Foot process, though he told me within minutes of meeting that he wanted to use One Cubic Foot for his master’s thesis.

I made some assumptions about Mahandry when we met, since I knew he was living in the capital city, going to university for a master’s degree. I assumed he was from one of Madagascar’s few “wealthy” families.

As it turns out, Mahandry is from Kiranomena, a town and commune of 24,000 people, though quite spread out. He is the fifth of six children, and his parents are both teachers (though only his father is formally educated). I asked him whether many of his peers had gone to college, and he counted ten. One sister did go to college, but the rest “got married.” 95% of the population of the commune are farmers, and the most important crop by far is rice. At 25 years old, it is unusual for someone to be studying rather than raising a family and working a farm.

Mahandry grew up loving nature and spending us much time outside as he could. He shared with us the ambivalence villagers feel about the creation of the national park system (which is not dissimilar to the feelings of ranchers and farmers in the United States). Fortunately, the Malagasy government has recognized that the creation of the national parks serves two important purposes: the protection of the species endemic to Madagascar and the growth of the tourism industry. In fact, Ranomafana National Park has 30,000 visitors per year, which may not sound significant until you realize it is a ten hour drive over winding, bumpy, mountainous roads from the nearest airport.

Mahandry has been a gift to our team, not only as a rudimentary translator, but for the opportunity learn about this culture firsthand. It has also been validating to see his eyes light up as he understands what this One Cubic Foot project can do, and how he can use it for his master’s thesis and beyond. He is actively out looking for the spot for the cube with us and has jumped in to learn how to take samples for DNA barcoding.

Last night, over a game of Liars Dice and perhaps some local brew, we asked Mahandry if this experience was what he expected. He laughed shyly, shook his head, and said “No. You guys are cool.”  Sometimes his English is perfect.

One Cubic Foot Madagascar: Placing the Cube

Zoo Society Director of Programming and Conservation Action Tom Snyder will be documenting the team’s findings as One Cubic Foot Madagascar continues.There is a complexity to conservation that you aren’t able to see until you are in the ecosystem that needs to be conserved. The last few days here in Madagascar have been filled with up to 10 miles a day of hiking to find the right spot to conduct the Seneca Park Zoo Society’s One Cubic Foot project. For us, it is all about using the biodiversity to tell the story of Ranomafana National Park, and on a larger scale, Seneca Park Zoo’s role in the conservation of Madagascar.

Madagascar separated from Gondwanaland (the supercontinent that makes up present day Africa, Antarctica, India and Madagascar) about 135 million years ago. Madagascar then split from India around 88 million years ago. The plants and animals on this newly created island were able to evolve in an isolation that is seen in very few places on our globe. With a land area of around 226,000 square miles (slightly less than twice the size of Arizona), Madagascar is tropical along the coasts, temperate inland, and arid in the South.

Since we are here in the winter months, a lot of the biodiversity one would expect to see is only out and viewable sporadically. This makes placing the cube a bit challenging, but even in these cool nights (mid 50s), we have found some amazing biodiversity. With a high number of endemic species (native and found nowhere else), our cube is sure to reveal animals that we have never seen before.

One animal we have seen over and over again is the terrestrial leech. Found only along the humid forests of the East Coast, the Haemadipsid leeches are blood feeders that everyone on the team has gotten to know. In fact, at any point when we stopped walking to check a spot for the cube, we were inundated with dozens of leeches within moments. Needless to say, the Seneca Park Zoo Society One Cubic Foot team has gotten very good at the ‘leech flick’ to remove them from clothing and skin before feeding occurs. If feeding has started it is easier to let them get their fill and then harmlessly drop off.

Stay tuned for more updates as we have tentatively placed the cube, are collecting, DNA barcoding, and photographing the incredible biodiversity of this remote African island.

Specimen photos courtesy of David Liittschwager

One Cubic Foot Madagascar: First Findings

Zoo Society Director of Programming and Conservation Action Tom Snyder will be documenting the team’s findings as One Cubic Foot Madagascar continues.Traveling to a new country always gives you experiences you never knew you would have. On the Seneca Park Zoo Society trip to Ranomafana National Park in Madagascar, this has definitely been true. At every bend of the road, and every descent down a mountain, we have seen things that give us a new perspective on our own lives and inform us about our own ecosystem.

In a nation that has lost approximately 95% of its forests, Madagascar’s biodiversity is concentrated in isolated forests, and the Ranomafana forest is one of the richest on the island. At just over 41,000 hectares, the One Cubic Foot team is just beginning to explore around Centre Valbio (CVB), the field station located along the edge of the National Park. The park has secondary forest, as well as primary forest, and we plan on exploring and documenting both.

The CVB field station was built specifically for field research, and features multiple lab spaces, enough room for 52 researchers, a meeting hall, dining hall, access to trails, and a well-trained staff of scientists and specialists. It also functions as a major local employer of over 80 local citizens creating a large positive impact on the local economy.

Our job is to document the biodiversity of the park, and within the first full day on site (Monday) we found some amazing animals. One of the first we found was a plume moth.These are considered micro-moths, and have unusually modified wings that resemble feathers.  They are found throughout the world, including North America, where they can be pests to crop producers.

Exploring around CVB also uncovered a few local chameleons, the Clumma nasutum, or Big Nosed Chameleon.This small arboreal chameleon was found multiple times just outside the doors of CVB, and features great colors, a grumpy looking, down-=turned mouth, and a nose appendage that gives this chameleon a ton of character.

After a long first day of collecting, identifying, and processing animals, we already have a plethora of documented biodiversity that can be found at Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar.We are excited to hike to the primary forest about two hours away to scout for the most biodiverse One Cubic Foot that can be found in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar. Stay tuned for more updates!All photos courtesy of David Liittschwager

One Cubic Foot Madagascar Travel Log 2

Zoo Society Executive Director Pamela Reed Sanchez will be updating this travel log as One Cubic Foot Madagascar continues.Part Two: The road to Ranomafana

Long story short, I was two days late arriving in Madagascar. The Johannesburg hotel airport is quite fine but six meals in a row in the same airport restaurant makes one anxious to get back in the air.  One Cubic Foot creator and photographer David Liittschwager stayed in Johannesburg with me so that this naïve international traveler wouldn’t have to make the journey alone.

As we flew into Antananarivo, Madagascar, we counted dozens of fires from the air. Actually, David counted 21 fires, and then stopped, but there were many, many more.

The fires are small burns of one to two acres of forest that the local people are removing in order to create rice paddy-fields.   The trees are cut down first, for fuel, and for building, and for export.  Some of the wood here is incredibly valuable. The stumps are then burned and the land converted for agriculture.

It is no surprise that of the 103 species of lemurs, more than 90% of these arboreal primates are highly endangered. Their habitat has shrunk by 80% as more and more forest is converted to farming.

As we made our ten-hour drive from Antananarivo to Ranomafana National Park (spread over two days), I understood why.The population in Madagascar essentially doubled in the last 20 years, to more than 22 million; 90% of them live on less than $2 a day. When your choice is to cut down a tree to feed your family, or save a lemur, is there really a choice?

And that is why the work of people like Dr. Patricia Wright, founder of Centro ValBio and a major instigator of the creation of Ranomafana National Park, is so essential. Pat and her team – the majority of whom are Malagasy – understand the extraordinary biodiversity of this island nation, and are working to preserve it.

Tomorrow I head into Ranomafana National Park to see lemurs and chameleons and whatever else awaits in the natural world.  A day without humans, other than the team here looking for biodiversity. I’m ready for that.

One Cubic Foot Madagascar Travel Log 1

Zoo Society Executive Director Pamela Reed Sanchez will be updating this travel log as One Cubic Foot Madagascar continues.Part One: May 18, 2016

On a train headed to Penn Station…and then to JFK airport.  We board South African Airlines tomorrow to head for Antananarivo, Madagascar via Johannesburg.

I have not been out of the Western Hemisphere since 1986.  I have never been out of the Northern Hemisphere.

I have never been to a developing country (Mexico doesn’t count, right?).

I am prepared to have my mind blown, but I don’t even have a concept of what that means.

I’m told that as we make the drive from Antananarivo (the capital of Madagascar) to Ranomafana National Park, I will see signs of the forests burning.  Eighty percent of Madagascar’s forests have been destroyed in the last decades…and if that sounds horrendous, consider how much of our country was once forest and wild spaces.

What am I expecting? I honestly don’t know. One of the biggest revelations I’ve had in my life is that “I don’t know what I don’t know.” Colleagues on this trip have told me that it will be a few days before it hits me….how different the world is than my own current experience of it.

You can prepare as much as possible…and still not know what lies ahead.

We have, in fact, been preparing for this trip for nearly a year. The stars aligned to make it possible for us to bring David Liittschwager (creator of “One Cubic Foot”) and Chris Meyer (Smithsonian research zoologist and co-founder of the Barcode of Life Database –BOLD) to replicate One Cubic Foot in Ranomafana National Park, where lemur expert Pat Wright has been working for decades to ensure the sustainability of the 100+ species of lemurs in Madagascar. The docents at Seneca Park Zoo have been supporting Dr. Wright’s research for nearly 20 years.  I call her the Jane Goodall of lemurs, but actually, she’s more than that. When Pat first started her work in Madagascar, there were 30 known species of lemurs, and the bamboo lemur was thought to be extinct. She went in search of bamboo lemurs…and found them.  And more. Today, there are at least 103 species of known lemurs, and a great deal of this knowledge is due to the work of Pat Wright and her colleagues.

When we first skyped with Pat about the possibility of bringing One Cubic Foot to Ranomafana, her first words were, “Do you want to put the cube in the rainforest, or in the river?”

Honestly, I was thrilled that Pat already knew what One Cubic Foot was, and my colleague, Tom Snyder, and I simply said, “YES.”  Because we don’t know, yet, and won’t know until we get there, what the perfect spot will be for placing the cube for optimal biodiversity. Our hope is that with the participation of 15 teenagers from Allendale Columbia School that we will have the resources to successfully monitor more than one cube.

The work that we did in the Genesee River resulted in 17 new DNA barcode sequences being added to BOLD (a database that already has 5 million barcodes).  That was roughly 13% of the barcode sequences conducted on the specimens collected during that project.

Earlier this week, I asked the Allendale Columbia students to speculate on the percentage of barcodes collected on our trip that will be new to BOLD. Since 90% of the species found on Madagascar are endemic to the island (meaning they are found ONLY on Madagascar), and to the best of our knowledge we are only the second group to conduct DNA barcoding in Madagascar, the predictions ranged from 25% to 95%. Perhaps none of us know what to expect. But all of us know we are in for the trip of a lifetime.

One Cubic Foot Madagascar

This month, the Zoo Society will continue its conservation science initiative One Cubic Foot in Madagascar, the large island nation off the coast of southeast Africa.

The team

The One Cubic Foot team is comprised of photographer and environmentalist David Liittschwager and his team; Zoo Society directors; and Smithsonian Institution scientists. They will begin arriving on the African island later this week, and most will stay for two weeks. This multi-discipline, collaborative team will document the unique biodiversity of Madagascar, an ecosystem home to thousands of animal species found nowhere else in the world, using the same technique Liittschwager has used everywhere from Costa Rica to Central Park during the last decade. Last summer, he replicated One Cubic Foot in Rochester’s Genesee River in partnership with the Zoo Society.

The privately funded trip to Madagascar will create a unique educational experience for students from Rochester’s Allendale Columbia School. 15 students selected through a rigorous application process will assist the One Cubic Foot team with field work, data collection, and research in an area of federally protected land in Ranomafana National Park.

The process

As featured in his book A World in One Cubic Foot: Portraits of Biodiversity and by National Geographic, Liittschwager records every plant and animal species that moves in and out of a one cubic foot frame set into nature throughout the course of a day. He then creates a photographic portrait of the rich biodiversity found there, highlighting the ecosystem’s resilience, challenges and beauty.

For two decades, the Zoo Society has supported the conservation work of Ranomafana’s Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments, led by world-renowned Madagascar conservation expert Dr. Patricia Wright. Dr. Wright has been a driving force of the conservation of many endangered species in Madagascar, including ring-tailed lemurs, a species currently represented at the Zoo.

The conservation science

Like One Cubic Foot in the Genesee River, which contributed meaningful data to the scientific record and 28 newly-documented species to an international DNA barcoding database, the project in Madagascar is expected to yield important insights about the biodiversity in Ranomafana National Park. An estimated 30% of the DNA barcodes collected could be new to the database.

Along with Chris Meyer, Research Zoologist and Curator at the Smithsonian Institution, Liittschwager, the Zoo Society’s Executive Director Pamela Reed Sanchez, and Director of Programming and Conservation Action Tom Snyder will monitor the primary cube while Allendale Columbia School students monitor their own supplemental cubes.

Read journal updates from the field.iNaturalist JournalFollow the Zoo and #OneCubicFoot on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.Follow the Zoo’s new conservation Twitter account for day-to-day updates from Madagascar.

Read Zoo Society Director of Programming and Conservation Action Tom Snyder’s updates on the project’s findings:Read Zoo Society Executive Director Pamela Reed Sanchez’ travel logs:Help the team identify species they find in Madagascar.

iNaturalist.org

Enrichment for Bianca the lynx

Almost daily, I am asked what my favorite animal at the Zoo is. That is not an easy question for me because I have been fortunate enough to have worked with a variety of different species ranging from frogs to rhinos. However, there is one particular animal here at the Zoo that I look forward to seeing every day. Her name is Bianca and she is one of our Canadian lynx. Bianca was born on June 4, 2013 and came to Seneca Park Zoo on July 9, 2014. I was fortunate enough to work with her when she first came to the Zoo and spent time in quarantine.

All new arrivals go through quarantine, and during that time a complete physical is conducted, including fecal and blood testing to assess the animal’s overall health condition. We also test for infectious diseases and look for gastrointestinal and/or external parasites. Quarantine times can vary, but they usually last about 30 days.

During this time, I spent lot of time with Bianca and learned that she was a very curious and active animal. She liked to sit on top of her “house” and watch through the window to see everything that was going on inside the building, and she would sit on the highest spot outside to watch the Zoo guests pass by.Once her quarantine was complete, Bianca was relocated to her current home in the Rocky Coasts with our male lynx, Gretzky. She was often found on the smallest of ledges at the top of her enclosure, so the Zoo’s Environmental Enrichment Committee build the lynx a cat tree, complete with a comfy basket at the top for her to lounge in and observe activities far outside her enclosure.Due to her curious nature, Bianca always challenges us to come up with new and exciting ideas to enrich her. All of the animals at the Zoo are offered environmental enrichment. This allows them to demonstrate their species-typical behaviors and to exercise control or choice over their environment. Bianca particularly likes new scents, different substrates, and to be up high. We recently received some new wood wool bedding material. It was placed on exhibit in various spots and immediately became a favorite spot for her to roll in and rest.Spices, perfumes, boxes, paper bags, and soiled straw from other animals are other things that we place throughout her space. In order to keep things interesting, we are always doing research to come up with novel enrichments. We also track and rate any enrichment we give Bianca, as well as all the animals at the Zoo, to better understand what they prefer.

As Assistant General Curator at the Zoo, I am fortunate enough to work with or see Bianca every day, and I enjoy every moment. The next time you are at the Zoo, make sure that you stop by the lynx exhibit to see what new enrichment they have received.

Remember to look up high, because you just might be surprised to see Bianca looking down at you!–Kellee Wolowitz, Assistant General Curator