A ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), a key agent of seed dispersal in southern Madagascar.
The ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) serves as a key agent of seed dispersal in southern Madagascar, where the landscape is heavily fragmented by agriculture and remaining forest patches are protected by local taboos. Lemurs eat fruit and disperse the seeds as they move along the ground between forest patches, thereby providing an important ecological service within a landscape that is strongly impacted by humans. In such heavily fragmented agricultural landscapes, small patches of forest may be essential for maintaining ecosystem services. This photograph originally appeared on the cover of Ecological Applications (16:2) in April of 2006.
| Primary or BEN resource type | |
|---|---|
| Format | |
| Temporal and geographic description | Southern Madagascar, Africa. |
| Core Concepts | |
| Drought & Water-Ecosystem Services Collection | Off |
| Conservation Targets Under Global Change Collection | Off |
| Big Data Collection | Off |
| Editor's Choice | No |
| Audience | |
| Pedagogical Use Description | This photograph can be used to illustrate a lemur, a fruit-eating mammal, or an important agent of seed dispersal. |
| Keywords | Agriculture, fragmentation, habitat fragmentation, seed dispersal, forest, forest patch, matrix, fruit, ecosystem service |
| Key taxa | ring-tailed lemur, Lemur catta |
| Life science discipline (subject) | |
| Primary Author Controlled Name | |
| Primary Author Affiliation | Department of Systems Ecology, Stokholm University Biology Program, Wilkes University |
| Primary Author email | jakob@system.ecology.su.se , kklemow@wilkes.edu |
| Rights | Copyright 2006 by the Ecological Society of America. |
| Date Of Record Submission | 2008-04-09 |
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