Diet, Nutritional Ecology, and Birth Season of Eulemur macaco in an Anthropogenic Forest in Madagascar |
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Authors: | Bruno Simmen Françoise Bayart André Marez Annette Hladik |
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Institution: | (1) Département Hommes, Natures, Sociétés, MNHN/CNRS UMR 5145, 91800 Brunoy, France;(2) Département Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodiversité, MNHN/CNRS UMR 5176, 91800 Brunoy, France;(3) Département de Génie Biologique, Université Paris XII, 94010 Créteil, France |
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Abstract: | We investigated the feeding ecology of Eulemur macaco macaco in an old coastal secondary forest of northwestern Madagascar. We analyzed whether the local combination of introduced and
native plant species could provide viable anthropic conditions for sustaining the black lemurs. Fruits (79 spp.) dominated
the annual diet (>104 species from 50 families via observations ad libitum and use of a feeding frequency methods). Records from the early dry (mating) and late dry (birth) seasons show that a few
major fruit species are staples in conjunction with a variety of other plant items in much lower proportions. We further estimated
daily food intake and analyzed nutrient/antinutrient content in the diet during the birth season to evaluate the possibility
that black lemurs undergo nutritional stress. They exhibited a high-energy input/low energy output foraging strategy then
and had limited use of alternative resources such as leaves throughout the study period. We conclude that the potential for
feeding flexibility is low because specialization on fruit results in protein requirements being achieved probably by a narrow
margin. We hypothesize that patchy distribution of preferred cash-crop plants and indigenous species currently has a major
limiting effect on population size through feeding competition. |
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Keywords: | black lemur fruit-specialist nutrients seasonality secondary metabolites |
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