We are pleased to share a new publication featuring research from our board members and many of our students! In this paper, we confirmed the species of dwarf lemur inhabiting 10 sites across Madagascar from samples collected by teams of researchers over the past decade.​ We sequenced a simple yet diagnostic mitochondrial marker gene (cytochrome b) to place the sampled lemurs into known or proposed species.

 

We document range expansions for several species, most notably the furry-eared dwarf lemur (Cheirogaleus crossleyi), which we found in forest fragments across the central highlands. We also identified centers of sympatry in the northeast, where three species of dwarf lemur from different lineages all live in the same place at the same time. 

 

 "We regard improved sampling resolution across the genus and the island as critically important to assess conservation risk due to habitat and climate change. Models built to predict lemurs' extinction risk are based on available input data that are too often incomplete to make reliable predictions. As wildlife conservation continues to benefit from genetic, genomic, and computational methods that are ever more sophisticated, precise, powerful, and widespread, we must not lose sight of the value of foundational field work, natural history exploration, and survey/sampling expeditions to generate the very data on which these methods rely."

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Blanco, Greene, ... Ratsoavina, & Yoder. 2025. Genetic confirmations of dwarf lemurs across Madagascar highlights complex  biogeographic patterns. Integrative Conservation, 4:665-674.