American Scientist

Although he was studying brown lemurs at the time, Ian Colquhoun took the advice of his graduate advisor and switched to black lemurs, because a nearby zoo had a population with which he could familiarize himself with captive observation before continuing his studies in the field. During his time as a graduate student, Colquhoun received a Sigma Xi GIAR grant that helped him complete the first long-term study on black lemur socioecology. His study site in Madagascar, Colquhoun says, no longer exists, the forest edges having been eroded by logging, prospecting, and an increasing population. But fieldwork in Madagascar gave Colquhoun insights into what is now called ethnoprimatology—the study of primates in relationship to their habitat and to the human population that is simultaneously using the same resources. Colquhuon’s experiences led him not only to environmental conservatism, but also to local community involvement and training Malagasy students, and to taking a deeper look at how a country’s political climate can affect conservation. Colquhoun spoke about understanding primates in the context of their environment with American Scientist editor in chief Fenella Saunders. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is it that you find particularly fascinating about lemurs?

When I came to the University of Western Ontario, I was interested in zoology. As part of a summer gig, I was able to arrange a zookeeping job with the local lemurs at the municipal animal park, and one lemur, Lola, just took to me. I was her favorite human, and she always greeted me with a hug. Probably it arose out of an intertroop encounter where she got injured and we had to isolate her for a spell. But I wasn’t trying to coax her; she sought the contact with me. Later, I went back to visit after about three years from the last time I’d been at the animal park. Lola recognized me right away. I was able to go in and see her. She came and she hugged me. She didn’t want to separate. That really signaled to me something cognitive in this little primate. In the primatological literature, you don’t hear about lemur cognitive power. But there was this powerful connection with Lola; I included her in the acknowledgements to my master’s thesis.

What does socioecology mean?

It’s at the interface between what’s happening within the social group and what’s happening within the environment in which the social group finds itself. For example, wet season versus dry season, there are differences in diet, and that could affect ranging behavior, activity levels, or even the integrity or cohesiveness of the social group. I found, for example, that in the dry season groups got very unstable and would fission quite often, especially groups that were a bit at the larger end of the size spectrum, versus smaller groups that remained more cohesive. It’s like a furry little soap opera. There are always things happening and changing from day to day and week to week.

How does your current work look at terrestrial behavior across primates?

We are part of a team of 120 field primatologists who pooled together 150,000 hours of data from Madagascar and Central and South America, because in both those areas you have lots of primate diversity, but no current primate species that are terrestrial. This is my first foray into big data, the hot area in biology right now. The lead researcher, Timothy Eppley, asked us to contribute our black lemur data set: 13 months of study, four social groups, and two birth seasons. And then you amplify that by 120 researchers. It’s brought in angles on my data set and a larger comparative data set that hadn’t been top-of-mind initially. It’s been fun to be able to apply that data in a new way, asking new questions of the data.

What have been some outcomes of that data meta-analysis?

It looks like the local climate is a factor, so animals will come to the forest floor during the day to escape the heat and the sunlight up in the canopy. Certainly with the black lemurs, dry season was one period where we saw them come to the ground. They would forage for mushrooms and use other terrestrial resources.

The youngsters would get into play bouts on the ground, which they didn’t do at other times of the year necessarily, hilarious stuff like throwing leaf litter up in the air. They’d get all excited when it starts fluttering down around them. Again, there’s some higher-order stuff going on in these little cat-sized primates. Another great fun terrestrial game they would get into is they’d find saplings, maybe 2 to 3 meters tall. We observed this more than once at different sites in the forest, in more than one group, even. The youngsters would leap from the ground about 2 meters off, grab the sapling, and then fall in slow motion, just gravity at work. Their body weight was enough to bend the tree right over, so as soon as they touched the ground, they’d leap away and ricochet all over the immediate area. Then they’d go back and do it all over again. Animals would be taking turns at this. We even found saplings that were broken off, and we figured they got into it so much that their gravity tree got snapped in the process. There, they are affecting their local environment from their behavior terrestrially, in a micro way. But it gets repeated across the population.

Are terrestrial behaviors used in predator avoidance?

In one of the bigger forest groups I studied, harrier hawks are a major aerial predator. We’d see them quite regularly. When the lemurs saw them, they virtually always gave a very distinctive vocalization, which I ended up calling a “scream whistle.” So harrier hawks would appear over the forest, and this troop was one that stayed up in the trees mostly. The youngsters in the troop would come down to the ground and stay there for half an hour while this hawk was overhead. Some of the aggregate efforts coming out in this data show something analogous across sites.

Did you encounter ethical dilemmas in the field?

One day, my wife and I were walking from camp and passed this little farming homestead. The farmer signaled to us to come over to their hut, and had a juvenile black lemur tethered to a pole that he was looking to sell. We were 30 kilometers from the nearest ranger office. There were multiple things going through my head. I was thinking about everything from, How would this affect my visa status? What if I did purchase the animal and then word got around locally, and people start bringing more captive lemurs? Or if we did just get the animal out of that captive situation, what would we do next? Simply releasing a single juvenile back into the forest is not a good idea. We ended up utilizing a local concept of fady, often translated as being a “taboo” activity or practice or outlook. We simply indicated that buying lemurs was fady for us, sorry. It wasn’t ideal, but it seemed like the best choice at the time. So seeing the travails on the ground that are part and parcel of conservation, I didn’t like it, but it was necessary, and I’m glad I had that exposure.

How do you study the overlap of humans and nonhuman primates?

When I got to Madagascar to do my fieldwork, I was working in a small area with nominal protection under Madagascar’s system. It wasn’t a national park or anything that big. It was what’s called classified forest. But it was off the beaten track. I got there and almost right away I realized, there’s people living all around the forest. I had to think about what the people are doing. The anthropologist in me had to kick into gear. Effectively, I ended up studying the local people and the lemurs and the forest and the interactions. I was doing ethnoprimatology before the term got into the literature in the late 1990s. It’s remained a vital area of interest. I think it’s actually increased the number of people that are gravitating toward that same interface and dynamic in different settings around the world.

How does that interaction with the local population influence conservation?

I think it’s where the national conservation planning and the international treaty agreements, all that rubber hits the road when you’re at a field site in the middle of nowhere. There was a level of recognition locally that they use this part of the forest, and that’s how they’ve always done it. So there was this potential for friction, let’s say. You try to construct a conservation effort or plan, and you’re running up against not necessarily local resistance or local opposition, but just local day-to-day life and livelihoods. But there’s often good support and good local interest and buy-in on conservation efforts, particularly when they’re done at a local level. I’ve had some workings with the International Primatological Society, which had an ad hoc committee on community involvement that started up after their 2006 congress, and now there’s a position policy and a best-practices document. It was a really organic, bottom-up effort, which I think was a really productive thing to see happen. From other situations with which I’m familiar, that sort of support, that local, on-the-ground involvement, is really crucial. I’ve continued with conservation with local non-government organizations, and fostering Malagasy students in exchange programs.

Has your approach to conservation altered since you incorporated local populations into the process?

In how conservation is practiced, I’d say there’s not just been a growing recognition of the potential importance and power of that local involvement, but there’s also been a growing voice from those local communities that recognize they should be heard, rather than having to work through an intermediary. I have a graduate student in Ecuador right now, working on the same nexus of local reserve, endangered primates, local communities in and around the reserve, and new economic opportunities such as ecotourism or bamboo and its applications. She’s been actively straddling the sociocultural anthropology and physical anthropology interfaces. This is going to be a stronger lens, viewing these sorts of situations in context. Having those local voices is going to be absolutely crucial in the future. But in that local focus, while heeding that wealth of knowledge, field researchers also need political insight to not have a blanket view of all community members, but recognize subgroups, possibly interest groups, maybe political rival groups. It can be a tricky field to navigate.

How is the political situation in Madagascar affecting conservation efforts?

There are voices of concern in the government. I think there is some receptivity for meaningful action. There’s certainly strong international support. There’s a really good network within Madagascar academically, both from foreign researchers collaborating with people, but also from the training of the next generation of Malagasy researchers. It’s not totally desolate despair, as if we should rend our clothes and wear sackcloth and ashes. But with the climate issues and a strong cultural attachment in rural Madagascar, where you burn underbrush before each planting season, it’s a knotty problem, a wicked problem. It is going to take all hands. There’s recognition that there’s a closing window on all these frontiers. There’s only so much forest left. You can’t talk about forest preservation forever.

There was a working budget for an action plan to address about 35 diversity hotspot sites across the island, which were also strong lemur biodiversity sites and strong research sites. The total budget for the entire conservation action plan was $7 million. Private funding was sought out and the budget was achieved, so again, good developments. I guess it’s still a question of how much of that is going to have a positive effect on the ground. But there’s certainly willpower within Madagascar, and all kinds of determination and conviction internationally. Lemurs have that public-awareness level of recognition. People like lemurs.